On paper today should have been better than Saturday. I had assured Felix yesterday that if he had to choose between the weekend days today would be the day. He didn’t come out yesterday because of my advice. Boy, did I feel bad when we got to Santa Brigida and the wind was NW (the hill takes SE). Thermals were bringing it on, but the wind in the bottom landing field was consistently somewhere between SW and NW, but mostly WNW. You’d expect it to be a bit of a washing machine out front. We caught up on the last six months worth of news, had a picnic, Felix did some groundhandling, Geoff read and I went for a walk and we were all going to write off the day at 4pm when Marc, Lluis and another pilot arrived.

By this time the wind was light at the bottom and Felix launched. He managed to maintain a while but then went down. Shortly after Marc launched and went straight up. Lluis followed him and they got as far as the end of the ridge to the east. We got ready fast (too fast – I forgot to put my ballast in) and launched. It was easy to stay up, and there was lift everywhere. I thermalled a bit and then dropped onto the east ridge. There I hit a line of convergence and I straight-lined it all the way to the road beyond St. Climent de Amer. I punched through the inversion and got there at 3250′ AMSL and I could easily have landed at La Cellera, but decided to boat about admiring the scenery. This is the furthest I have ever pushed forward and got back, so it was worth spending the time sight seeing. Visibility was unbelievably clear – you could see the houses at Roses, the cathedral at Girona, sea all along the coast (as far as Tossa de Mar) and of course the Pyrenees. Just stunning. Lluis was up there too, but he got even higher. Geoff, meanwhile, didn’t quite get into the lift I had, but had a lovely boat about at 1200′ ATO, and thoroughly enjoyed his flight. Felix too flew again and had a nice time.

On my return to Santa Brigida, it had picked up a lot and I couldn’t top land. Without ballast I was getting buffeted around a bit and decided to do the sensible thing and bottom land, even if this meant a walk back up the hill. Geoff had similar problems and we both ended up at the bottom by choice. Not that it was easy to get there – there was lift everywhere.

Luckily for us Lluis top landed and brought our car down. There were a few firsts for Lluis too, so we had a big excited chat about our little adventure.

See photos of today.

3 Comments »