November 2008
Monthly Archive
Sunday, 30th November 2008
Geoff 30 Nov 2008 | : Boring stuff
Geoff writes: Sunny, cold (but getting warmer) and west, quite strong at first. So didn’t bother going out. Did some work instead.
Saturday, 29th November 2008
Geoff 29 Nov 2008 | : Boring stuff
Cold and wet as the forecast said. But the long distance 8 day forecast is, for what it’s worth, improving. We’ll see……
Friday, 28th November 2008
Geoff 28 Nov 2008 | : Trying, but failing, to fly
Geoff writes: Cloudy at first, but the sun came out and it turned into a really nice day. Vincent phoned to say it was south at Girona, so I duly set off for Santa Brigida (Judith away for a few days). On the way, I could see the duvet effect (our term) of the clouds on the hills (or small mountains, really) in the Val d’en Bas. The duvet effect is where the cloud spills over them, clingng to the top. I’m not exactly sure what causes this – it isn’t typical orographic cloud. Anyway, it’s always a bad sign, it usually means it is the wrong direction at Santa Brigida. And right on time, Vincent phoned again to say it was strong west at Santa Brigida. So I turned back.
Whilst Santa Brigida nearly always works, it is useless in a westerly. There is a westerly site, just to the north of Girona, but it was south there.
Lousy forecast for Saturday, much better for Sunday.
Thursday, 27th November 2008
Judith 27 Nov 2008 | : Boring stuff
Bitterly cold today with even a little snow in Barcelona (very rare), and rain here later on. This wasn’t forecast yesterday, and had we realised, we’d have made the effort yesterday and gone flying at Santa Brigida. But today, as it was, apart from a couple of trips outside to deal with car problems and shopping we stayed at home and tried to keep warm, and did some work. This isn’t what we came to Spain for!
And not a great forecast for the next couple of days – probably better in the UK, at least for Friday and Saturday. However, the forecasting here is quite as bad as in the UK – for instance, the forecast this morning for Saturday changed abruptly from being a beautiful sunny day, to rain and snow all day. And I’ve just got two entirely different forecasts for tomorrow, one saying sunny all day, one saying rain. But who knows…
Wednesday, 26th November 2008
Judith 26 Nov 2008 | : Trying, but failing, to fly
Cold but sunny today. So cold that the hosepipe on the balcony had an icicle hanging from it. Forecast looked suitable for Coma Negra, so we met Joan and Xevi in the village and headed out.
When we got to the landing field the farmer had filled it with cows and removed the wind sock. This wouldn’t do at all, so the lads set out to construct a new one, made of a branch, a plastic bag a copious amounts of masking tape (all this required the use of a pocket knife – it was that technical!). Then we had to decide where to site it… Where better than up a telegraph pole? They climbed up, dodging the live electricity and telephone lines and weaving it into the wires and then fixing it in place with loads more masking tape. Job done we headed up. Unfortunately it was off to the west and not flyable.
They decided to head off to Santa Brigida (where it almost certainly was flyable), as it is on Xevi’s way home. We went home and did long overdue jobs.
Tuesday, 25th November 2008
Geoff writes: an excellent day at Santa Brigida. Strong northerlies forecast, and as we drove through Olot it was very windy. But arriving at launch, around 1.30, the wind was around 7 or 8mph, and more or less straight on. And a great sky with nice cumulus, very sunny. Basically, it was easily flyable all day until the sun went down – nice thermals earlier, then later just ridge life.
At times, it was hard to get down to top land. We didn’t get to any great height, max around 500′ ATO, though I’m sure we could have climbed more had we gone back a bit with the thermals – but given the abundance of lift, it was just nice, easy boating around, with nice views of the snow-covered Pyrenees behind, and not worth making the effort to get higher.
Marc from Ribes arrived just after us, and also flew; and (because we’d posted on the forum that we were going out) Fran from Blanes came – Fran has only just qualified, so he waited a while until the thermals were less strong, then had what was probably his first flight other than top to bottoms, flying for about 20 minutes, without a vario, before bottom landing.
All in all, an excellent day – a shame there were no more people there. Each year, there are fewer pilots here.
Monday, 24th November 2008
Judith 24 Nov 2008 | : Boring stuff
It was raining this morning, but then brightened up, only to cloud over again. Good day to catch up with some work. Forecast for the rest of the week is excellent, sunny but cold, so we should be flying most days.