Judith's blog

It’s all getting a bit hectic with us. We’re trying to get things scheduled for the few slots we have available in the next two weeks or things will be pushed past Christmas. We had to make my traumatologist appointment in person, and the only time my mum (Catalan – English interpreter/moral support) and I are here at the same time in the foreseeable future is the 19th November, so Geoff and I went off to make the appointment today. To make a long story short, I can’t be seen in a public hospital other than in an emergency, which makes sense… if I could, on an EHIC card, then health tourism would be the #1 reason for coming here. Other than the near non-stop sun, fantastic food, great flying, wild fiestas and lovely people, that is.

As we were already driving past Bellmunt, it made sense to go there to fly, although others had gone to Santa Brigida and Sant Pere de Rodes. It looked great. Vultures were thermalling and it was hot, with the forecast temperatures being 23C. Since we were on our own, I offered to drive for Geoff. I’m not sure what happened, maybe he launched in a bad cycle, but he sunk out quickly, and although he hit a good thermal in the valley, was down before I managed to drive down. We couldn’t decided wether it was best to drive back up for me to fly, or if we should go to Santa Brigida, where both of us could fly. A call to Oriol confirmed that we should go to Santa Brigida. We got there to see Sergi and Oriol high and rushed up, but by the time we got ready and off, it was a short flight. I top landed to have a chat with Sergi and Geoff flew until it got scratchy a little while later and he went down. It was probably ok again later, but we still had a lot of stuff to do, so headed back home via a few errands in Olot. And now more work… I have processed more than 90 bookings for our conferences since Tuesday, and they keep coming!

See photos of today.

No comments yet - please add one »

Geoff writes: a warm, sunny day, with light southerly winds. A good day for flying, but unfortunately Judith had to take her parents to the airport, and I had an online meeting I couldn’t miss (it’s getting increasingly difficult to fit in non-work stuff). The meeting went on for some time, so in the end we decided to meet up at our closest site, El Mont. As Judith arrived at the bottom, she saw a paraglider flying there, so it seemed like the right place to be. We’ve actually flown there loads of times, on hang gliders, but I’ve never flown a paraglider there before, though Judith has many times. The launch is a small ramp – very easy on a hang glider, and very hard on a paraglider. Judith got off perfectly, first time, but it took me two goes – light winds, pull up and then run like f….

It was quite thermic, and rough in places, and I had at least one large collapse, which was a bit surprising. There was wave about, though I don’t think that was the problem. The thermals were just strong and rough. We both flew out into the valley during our flights, and each picked up some less rough stuff, which kept us up for a while, before we went and landed near the village (and her parents’ car, which was our way to get back up the mountain).

Back on top, we had our apres vol beer looking at an amazing sky, and the sunset was pretty special too.

So an interesting day, if not quite epic!

See photos of today.

1 Comment »

A bit of a hotch-potch of a day. The forecast was hot, sunny and light south or south-easterlies. Oriol suggested Sant Pere de Rodes or Bellmunt, with Santa Brigida as a backup. Problem was that there was fog at the coast. By 11am, Oriol thought it would burn off and we arranged to meet at Palau Saverdera, the meeting place for Sant Pere de Rodes, with Peter coming along too. Peter lives closest and he said it was still foggy at 11.30am but the top of the ridge was just becoming visible. We were driving along debating what to do when Rolf and Dolores, our hang gliding friends, passed us on their way to El Mont. We decided not to chance the coast and turned around to say ‘hi’ to the hangies, many of whom we haven’t seen in a year or more.

The wind in the bottom landing field felt stronger than it should and orographic cloud was sitting on the launch at times. The cloud seemed to be coming from the east and we were not sure it was the right place to be. Rolf and Jordi offered us a lift up, but this would mean we would be stuck at the top and if it wasn’t flyable for PGs, we would have to wait until all the hangies were rigged and off before we could get a lift down. Or, if it was initially windy, but we thought it would be better later, then we would have to leave the hill or risk being stranded at the top if it didn’t drop off. Either way, we decided to go to the “guaranteed” option of Santa Brigida.

We got there later than anticipated at about 1.15pm. Oriol had called us to say that it was off to the east, but someone was happily soaring, and as we drove up, Oriol was getting high. It was indeed off to the east on take-off and the other pilot was Albert, who had been flying for the last hour and a half. Oriol came to top land as he wanted to have a chat about his new Impress II harness and wanted to compare his set up with mine. Geoff launched and had a little fly, but came in after about 15 minutes, saying that the thermals were not yet fully formed and it was bumpy. Oriol had relaunched too and as he came along the ridge, the windsock swung round 180 degrees and he was now in rotor from the hill. Luckily he saw it and immediately flew out, spiraled down and landed fine. It stayed between 90 and 180 degrees off for the rest of the time we were there. Occasionally a thermal would bring the wind on again and Ferran, who had walked up, would get excited, but the flag at the bottom and that on the monastery would stay decidedly off.

This has happened to us once before, when the wind spontaneously changed. Although then the wind had been off to the west, I think the conditions when this is most likely to happen is when there is an element of east in the wind. Because of the way the valley winds work, Santa Brigida works best when there is strong north wind at the coast. When there is a westerly component, it can be very good too, and the ridge to the west doesn’t produce rotor unless it’s so windy it isn’t flyable anyway. But in an easterly wind, often the wind flows down the valley behind and then flows round the back of the hill. This isn’t an issue when the wind is weak – the thermals and warmth of the ground in front will overcome the backwind easily, but if the wind strengthens, then the valley wind enters as a NW wind. Not good, but at least we now have a clearer idea of how this can happen and we can avoid the hill when the wind is forecast east.

Geoff wanted to wait it out for a while, since I hadn’t flown, but even if the wind had come on again, I didn’t trust the conditions and eventually we gave up and went to the fair in Girona instead. St Narcis is a ten day festival, so we spent some hours looking round the rides, stalls, listening to a great funk/jazz band and having junk food. One thing though… why is it that wherever in the world you go to a fiesta, there’s always a pan pipe group? And why are they always dressed as native American Indians and always butcher Simon & Garfunkle’s ‘Sound of Silence’? Maybe they’re actually the same band, just persecuting us?

See photos of today.

No comments yet - please add one »

We put out a message on the forum last night to see if anyone fancied going somewhere different today, but after some discussion, Sant Pere de Rodes was ruled out and Oriol, Marc and Nani decided to go to Santa Brigida. We had to deal with some work stuff first, including an impromptu team meeting, so we were late out.

Since we were going to Santa Brigida, I decided to test fly the Axis Vega III that Nicky has lent me. On the way there the sky looked fantastic and Geoff was discussing how we would get back if we both went XC. On arrival, we found both Marc and Oriol in the bottom landing. They said that despite the cumulus, the cycles were well spaced out, there was hardly any wind and the thermals were weak. We went up anyway, taking Marc back up with us. Meanwhile Nani had launched and was maintaining, and getting above launch easily.

I got the Vega III out, fluffed a couple of launches and by this time the others (Enric, Marc and a bunch of Spanish guys I have never seen before) were getting really high. Geoff and I struggled for the first ten minutes until we got a strong thermal and that got us up and through the inversion. Once above, it was child’s play. You could cruise around and at one point I was racing Geoff out into the valley, checking my glide angle against his, and seeing how the glider performed with added speedbar. It was a glorious late afternoon and the thermals just got better, bigger and smoother. Really lovely to be in the air.

I really like the Vega III. It seems lighter than the Vega II. It certainly feels lighter on brake, so you need less muscle power to turn it smoothly. It’s also faster than my glider and glides better too (as evidenced by my landing much further forward on top landing than I would have done on my Vega II). My one and only negative observation was that it flaps a lot with big ears on and they take a big pump to get back out. Otherwise I was very happy on it.

Peter came out today and had his maiden flight at Santa Brigida. He flew really well.

See photos of today.

No comments yet - please add one »

Geoff writes: a classic Santa Brigida day, and a nice end to Wayne’s holiday. Strong Tramuntana forecast, so the only place likely to work was Santa Brigida. Loads of big wave in the sky as we set off (and in fact when we arrived) but in the air it was ok. The first flights were a bit lumpy, the thermals were only just starting to form. So we top landed, and had some lunch. Marc turned up, launched, and we followed him. Smoother, liftier, easy to get high and push out into the valley. Another Marc arrived, Marc from Ribes, who we hadn’t seen since last year, and he also flew.  

Towards the end of the day, the thermals started to die off, and it switched to mostly dynamic, ridge, lift.

So a great day, followed by a quick sandwich, before dropping Wayne off at the airport. Good forecast for the rest of the week, though we have a fair amount of work to do.

See photos of today.

No comments yet - please add one »

It’s All Saints, so a public holiday here. We went out flying and took our friend Debbi along. The forecast was a little inconclusive, so we waited until the 11.30am update, which confirmed that we should go to Santa Brigida. As we got there is was sunny with only a few clouds, but as we were getting ready the sky started to cloud over. Wayne was off first while it was still thermic, but said it was bumpy. I launched and found it lumpy, and with less sun, not as lifty.

After that, the sky looked different in every direction you looked – some wave, alto cumulus, stratos, etc. there were two layers of cloud moving in opposite directions, which made the sky change fast and made for lots of interesting patterns.

Dominique from Niviuk came out for a fly on his ultralight gear (the whole lot just 4.5kg), and we had a chance to catch up on news. He flew down while we had a picnic, but then it started spitting, so we packed up and took Debbi home. I wasn’t feeling very well, but Wayne has never stood on a volcano before, so we took him up Montsacopa, one of the many overlooking Olot. It has a church on it and the views from all sides are nice. We even got to see a full rainbow over the mountains and the a spectacular sunset to finish the day. Shame my camera doesn’t do sunsets very well.

See photos of today.

No comments yet - please add one »

We were going to work today. Definitely no going out. Far too much to do. Forecast was not great with high cloud predicted all day. So we got our heads down and and did some serious grafting. But then the sky started clearing and the sun was shining and it all looked rather lovely and far too nice a day to stay indoors. I’d done loads… maybe just a quick flight. Oh, go on…

El Mont is the mountain we can see from our house and it looked very inviting, so Geoff volunteered to drive for me, so I could have a quick flight and then we could come back and work some more before meeting our friend Debbi for dinner. El Mont is 1125m high (so higher than Snowdon), has a tarmac road to the top, and a restaurant/bar in a converted monastery next to the take-off. It’s all very civilised. Even a top to bottom takes 20 minutes, so it’s worth going up if you have limited time. In the depth of winter it’s usually just that, a fly down, but as it’s my favourite hang gliding site in Europe, I fancied going there.

When we got to the top at 4pm we bumped into Pedro, an old hang gliding friend of ours, who’s bought a little fold up motorbike to retrieve his car from the top. He says there are now so few hang glider pilots that he had no one to share lifts with any more and had to resort to finding a way to get back up the mountain under his own steam.

El Mont is a great site, but the take off is a hang gliding ramp and it was somewhat like aversion therapy for my recent launch numptiness. You have to do a good launch there – there is no choice. Aborting the launch means landing in the trees and risking an ankle. I did a good assertive launch and was off cleanly first time.

Pedro had said how good the thermals had been earlier, but once I was off there was a solid inversion and the thermals were capped under it. You’d get a bit of lift, but it was too small to turn in. After a few minutes of trying along the top of the ridge, I spotted two birds on the perma-thermal trigger point over the rocks in front. It did kick off when I got there, but it was rough and broken and I didn’t hang around. Instead I headed to the gentle thermal trigger in the gulley in front of the quarry, but it wasn’t to be and I had a nice smooth ride into the valley for a landing in Maia. Not epic flying, but a pleasant way to have a break from work and nice to see the familiar scenery of our extended valley. Geoff came in time to help me pack up and then it was back to work…

See photos of today.

1 Comment »