February 2009
Monthly Archive
Saturday, 14th February 2009
Geoff writes: One of the best days I’ve had at Santa Brigida. Driving out, the sky looked excellent. We arrived around 1.00, to see a couple of people flying over from Puig d’Afrou. I launched, and flew for around 15 minutes, but it was getting quite bumpy – very strong lift, but bumpy – so I landed and decided to sit it out for a while. Not many people there, it was lunchtime.
After maybe an hour, it seemed to have calmed down – so much so that the one or two who were flying were struggling. This often happens here, there’s a dead bit in the middle of the day when there are still thermals, but it’s scratchy. Anyway, I launched, went straight up, more or less. At about 1900′ ATO, I had to decide whether to fly over the back towards Olot (I was still climbing strongly), or push forward to try to get onto the cliffs in the next valley. Pushing forward into a headwind on a 1/2, with a very un-aerodynamic harness is more of a challenge, and I’ve never managed to get into the next valley. This time I did though, topping up a little on the way. In fact, I was too high to bother with the cliffs, just carried on, and messed around for a while in the valley. It was nice to switch from ground thermal sources to just using the clouds. I eventually flew back and top landed. Was going to fly again, but the wind picked up, so I didn’t bother.
Judith, unfortunately, was ill, and didn’t fly. There’s always tomorrow.
Friday, 13th February 2009
Geoff 13 Feb 2009 | : Flying, Miscellaneous activities
Geoff writes: Judith is obviously getting into shopping, she went for the second time this week, this time with her mother to Barcelona. We clearly need a new category, shopping, for the blog.
I went flying. I was a little late, and didn’t arrive till 2.30. Joan and Luis had been there a while, and had had some good flights, but it was starting to go east. Luis went down, but I launched, flew for a while, and top landed. Roger launched just after I landed and went down, so I went to pick him up. By the time we got back up, it was light and very east, and no sun. So Joan and Luis decided the day was over and went home.
Roger and I sat it out. After about 45 minutes or so, the sun came out, the wind picked up and came more on the hill, so I launched, and went straight up. The sun was quite weak, and not out for long, but it was flyable then until late, with surprisingly strong thermals (though it is February, they should be good here), coupled with ridge lift. It was easy to get 700’+ ATO (with a lot more height to be had if I’d wanted to drift back), and quite difficult to lose height to land. Marc turned up having seen us fly, and had a short, but nice, flight. Just before the hill got in shadow, we all top landed, had our usual beers, and I went to pick up Judith and Liz from Girona, since they’d been so busy shopping they had missed the last bus home from Barcelona.
A really nice day’s flying. Glad I didn’t go shopping….
Judith writes: Well, if that’s what shopping is, I need some more lessons!
My mum and I met up in Barcelona for a day out and decided to go on a bit of a walk down memory lane. We spent two weeks there on an intensive language course in 2000, so instead of going shopping, we walked down the Ramblas for old time’s sake. In those days there were few stag parties and Ryanair refugees, so the place wasn’t packed to the rafters with tourists. Then you could amble down the Ramblas and see jugglers, break dancers, puppeteers, musicians and only the odd living statue. Then the living statues still had some novelty and because they had to compete with a variety of artists had to be pretty good. Today, Barcelona council won’t give busking licenses to anyone other than the statues because the crowds gathering around street performers were causing traffic problems and provided rich pickings for pick-pockets. Maybe a fine bureaucratic decision, but a living statue every 20 meters is pretty boring.
So, off to one of the other highlights of Barcelona: La Boqueria, the indoor market off the Ramblas. It’s a feast for the eye and the stomach. The colours, smells and atmosphere are amazing and I love going each time. Food-wise there is pretty much nothing you can’t get there.
Then off for lunch in an off-the-main-drag tapas bar. After lunch we still didn’t have the inclination to hit shops, so we went to the aquarium instead. I finally managed to identify and learn the names for all the fish we see when snorkeling near Roses. Of course I have forgotten nearly all of them already, but we see a lot of different types of wrasse here.
We were so engrossed in the fish, corals, and amorous iguanas that we forgot the time and had to hot-foot it back up to the Garrotxa Bus, which we missed by a couple of minutes.
All day in Barcelona and we didn’t actually go into a single shop!
Thursday, 12th February 2009
We went skiing. As we drove up to La Molina it was howling, so much so that we were in a whiteout a couple of times with snow being blown onto the road. Roger was going to meet us there and we were torn between going to Masella or La Molina, but the more easterly position and lower slopes made La Molina win out.
It was a beautiful sunny day and would have been warm had it not been for the wind. Roger was snow boarding for the first time this year and after an easy warm up blue he was off piste zooming through the trees and whizzing past us. We couldn’t keep up with him.
Wednesday, 11th February 2009
Judith 11 Feb 2009 | : Boring stuff
I was supposed to be going on a day out in Barcelona with my mum, but due to her work committments we’re going on Friday instead. Plan B was to go skiing, but strong winds and a forecast of snow kept us at home. Good thing too… there was 20cm of new snow at Masella this afternoon. We skipped the flying too as it was a grey and miserable day down here in the valley.
Tuesday, 10th February 2009
Judith 10 Feb 2009 | : Boring stuff
I said goodbye to Michaela this morning and Geoff took her to the airport, while I caught up with work. I have finally finished editing the podcast with Dave Thomson, which can be downloaded from the podcast page.
Despite a reasonable forecast, it clouded over by lunchtime and we decided to stay in and do jobs. This turned out to have been a good move, given that it started to rain half an hour later. Despite that fact that it wasn’t epic, Michaela was lucky with the weather over the weekend. At least it never rained.
Monday, 9th February 2009
We were optimistic about flying at Sant Pere de Rodes, but a quick phone call to Matthias confirmed that it was too windy. So off to Santa Brigida we went…
It was all looking very good. Warm (17C), sunny and cumulus bubbling in the distance. It was off to the west, but coming up the face on launch. We all got ready quickly and Udo, Jenny and Nani joined us. Geoff was first in the air and got low, only to thermal up to 1050′ ATO. I followed and there were thermals popping off all along the ridge. I misjudged a top landing and didn’t manage to pull the glider around into wind, so ‘arrived’ in a most undignified fashion.
Michaela thermalled up and flew around, but went down eventually along with Jenny. They just missed the next cycle, as Nani and Udo got high again. Whilst Geoff drove retrieve I got ready and launched again as the other lads were landing. As soon as I got into the air I noticed something very odd. I turned to the west and stopped dead, sinking like a brick. There are only very few, very narrow fields in amongst the trees below the launch and I’ve never seen anyone land there, but I was certainly heading there. I looked up to see the flag on the monastery pointing towards me – due north. I took a frontal just as I thought ‘Shit, I’m in rotor’. I then had an asymetric. All I was concerned about was getting away from the front of the ridge as fast as possible, so I crawled out into the valley, being tossed about all the while. Over the bottom landing field it was equally interesting. I would go from strong lift to strong sink (at one point going parachutal), the glider turning one way or the other. I didn’t have any more collapses, but I wasn’t entirely sure which field I was going to make it into. Several fires close the the landing field were blowing in different directions and the flag in the landing field varied from SE to NW. Albert and a couple of friends had arrived and watched open mouthed as I stuggled to get down in one piece. In the end I managed to land fine, but towards the NW, which is the narrowest part of the field. Felt like the longest 17 minutes of my life…
I got a lift back up, but it was curtains for the day, as the wind stayed over the back/too far west so after some consolation beers we headed home.
We have never seen it change so fast before, but I suppose with it already being west, it didn’t take much to push it further round.
Geoff writes: Scary for Judith, and even scarier to watch her. I was glad I was on the ground. I had a really nice couple of flights before though, and the first one was a nice thermal to just over 1000′, then I flew around for a while, top landed, flew again. It was all nice and benign when I was flying. As Judith said, it changed suddenly. Normally when it goes off to the north, there’s a period of calm, which usually decks people anyway. This time, it was an abrupt change and, plainly, caught us out. Not normal Santa Brigida conditions – though it is always an interesting place to fly, and we still learn a lot flying there.
Sunday, 8th February 2009
The forecast was more promising for today (although still a little windy from the north), so we decided to go to Puig d’Afrou in the morning, and Santa Brigida in the afternoon. It was lovely and sunny when we went out and on getting to Puig d’Afrou, it was south with little cumulus popping off. What stood out was the fantastic visibility. We could see the whole of the bay of Roses, including Palau Saverdera and the launch at Sant Pere de Rodes.
I was the designated driver, so Geoff and Michaela got ready quickly, but as soon as they were ready it turned north. The north launch is a tricky, committed (ex-hang glider) ramp, so not good in light conditions. They changed to the north launch when it promptly switched to nothing. In the distance we could see a warm front coming in which we had obviously missed on the forecast, and this shut off the sun and made it less likely to bring it back on to the south side.
All the while, we could see people flying at Santa Brigida so after swapping launches several times, we gave it up as a bad job and packed up. As soon as the gliders were in the bags it came on south. Typical.
The drive down was nearly as bad as the drive up… bumpy and skidding on the mud, even in a 4 x 4.
At Santa Brigida the wind was east and gusty, but as the front passed, it came more on and was sunny. Geoff, I and Michaela flew four, three and two times respectively. I flew my Aspen for the first time since October and I really, really need to get my launches sorted. It was challenging flying, but nice to get our feet in the air.