October 2008
Monthly Archive
Thursday, 23th October 2008
The front which was supposed to go through yesterday came through this morning, so we woke up to rain. Always a depressing sound. By lunch time it was sunny and after a short snooze (I’m still not sleeping very well at night), we headed off to Santa Brigida for a quick evening flight.
It was off to the west, but seemed doable, so we went to get our gliders out when a helicopter started to buzz the ridge. We realised pretty quickly that it was a pilot under instruction and they practiced hovering in front of the monastery, landing in the quarry, buzzing close over launch, etc. It was entertaining, but we were relieved to see them go so we could get in the air.
Conditions were smooth as silk and we both had a lovely evening flight. The colours are starting to change here and everything looks green, red and yellow in the evening glow.
Wednesday, 22nd October 2008
Judith 23 Oct 2008 | : Boring stuff
The forecast was poor. Warm front approaching and they were forecasting electrical storms, very strong winds and snow in the mountains. Can’t speak for the rest of the place, but here it was mostly sunny and then clouded over in the afternoon. Not a speck of rain and it wasn’t windy at all. We probably could have gone flying if we had not listened to the prophets of doom who work for Meteocat.
Tuesday, 21st October 2008
Judith 21 Oct 2008 | : Trying, but failing, to fly
We opened the conference today, so lots of work this morning. There is a two week reading period and by this afternoon everything had quietened down so we went out for a couple of hours.
The sky was great, although a little windy again. We were not sure if Santa Brigida would work, but on approaching it we could see Sergi high above the monastery. We gave Carles a lift up and he launched and went up vertically. It had already been picking up and by the time I was ready it was gusty and off to the east. The other guys landed fairly soon after. It was top-end and I wasn’t confident that it wouldn’t pick up more, so I elected not to fly. Geoff did the same.
Monday, 20th October 2008
Judith 20 Oct 2008 | : Boring stuff
The forecast got it wrong again. It was supposed to cloud over this afternoon with light southerly winds. What they had failed to predict was the massive wave bars which littered the skies. We drove out towards Santa Brigida, but decided it probably wasn’t worth continuing, so we about-turned and went to Besalu for lunch on the terrace over the river. It never did cloud over. Hot and sunny all day.
Sunday, 19th October 2008
What a day! The forecast was rubbish, so although we woke to clearing skies, we bid farewell to Richard, who headed up to Perepertuse in France. Meteocat got it spectacularly wrong. By 12pm the sky was fantastic and I could not concentrate on my work any more. We headed for Santa Brigida, where we met up with Marc and a guy on holiday from Mexico, called Gerardo. It was very thermic, in the sense that there was strong lift and strong sink and both Geoff and I went on a jolly to the bottom landing, whilst a guy from France went on a nice little out-and-return.
On getting back up we had another flight and both top landed. We were sunbathing, when two tourists came to the launch and started looking around. Two minutes later we heard a big crunch – the unmistakeable sound of a paraglider hitting trees. It was Gerardo, who’d never flown the site before. I and the two tourists ran to the edge and started to shout to check if he was ok. He shouted back to say he was fine, but Marc could see him from the air and said he was hanging in the tree. By an amazing coincidence, the two tourists were tree surgeons who had just been to a national tree rescue competition and had seen us flying so came up to have a look. They went to their van to get their gear and got his canopy out of the tree in what must be record time.
We all went back to launch and people immediately started to unknot the glider so he could get straight back on the horse. There was no way they were going to let him not fly again.
Geoff was first to launch again (at 4pm) and he immediately sunk out. I was on launch behind him, but took my harness off in readiness for picking him up from the bottom landing. I should have had more faith… He got the second lowest save of his flying career, and skyed out! I wish I had stayed in my gear! I launched as soon as I was ready again, and Santa Brigida did its usual evening magic… big thermals, easy lift in between. Perfect boating about condition. I got to 750′ ATO at 5pm in a wide, smooth thermal and it allowed me to see the beach and the Pyrenees at the same time. Beers in the landing field, and I managed to make a joke in Catalan. I must be picking it up!
Saturday, 18th October
Today, it really was bad weather. Rained off and on all day. The forecast was better for France, and we did consider going to Targassonne, but it’s a couple of hours drive, and Richard and Judith were far too hungover to do anything like that. I worked again, all day, conference preparation, whilst Judith took Richard out to the Dali castle at Pubol and to the beach at Calella de Parafugell to walk off their hangovers.
Good job we didn’t go to Targassonne. Udo went there, but no good.
Sunday Richard leaves, and the weather is expected to improve.
Oh, and the bad news about today was the end of 3Jam, the text messaging service Judith set up for pilots in the Mynd area. 3Jam have started charging, so it would cost around £5 each time someone sent a text message to the group. A real shame, a lot of pilots found it very useful, and got flights they otherwise would have missed.