The forecast promised much for today. Wall to wall sunshine and south wind. I had breakfast with my mum and the mountains around their village were glowing golden in the morning sun. By the time we finished our muesli, high cloud had come over and there was no sun at all. I drove home under gloomy skies but we decided to give the flying a go anyway.

We got to Santa Brigida to find a group of paragliders from Barcelona. They spend their weekends travelling around flying different sites and they were keen to learn about Santa Brigida and its potential. Also there was Enric from Maresme. So nice to see him!

Conditions got better as the day progressed. The sun came out, there was cumulus, but little wind. Geoff was first off, and squeaked in a top landing, on the small shelf  just in front of launch. On his second flight he was the only one to get into a thermal and climbed to about 500′ ATO. I was desperate to launch too, but got caught up giving a site briefing, so missed my chance. Geoff got some lift as he came in to top land and this made him overshoot, and he went down.  As I was driving down to get him Marc seriously skied out and went on a jolly along the east ridge. On getting back up I was rushing to get into the air, but found that someone had moved my gear and put a twist in my risers. Thankfully I noticed before I took off.

I launched and flew over to the east, and got some light lift close to the ridge. Far too close to be able to do a full turn, so S-ing was required. Unfortunately that was made a little difficult by people soaring, so I had to break right and fell out of the lift. I flew back to launch, getting lower all the time, and found more light lift, but was pushed out of that as well. Then I was pushed out of the ridge by someone overtaking me on the inside and edging me out more and more. I couldn’t turn because there was also someone following me. I was stuck flying further and further out. I had no choice but to fly out towards the landing field. Nearly brushing the trees, I found another small bubble, which I was determined to work, except that the only pilot still on the ridge saw me and decided he wanted a bit of the action. There was no way he could join my thermal properly (I was having to do one S for each full turn) so he just flew at me. By this time I was getting a little pissed off. I went into patient mode, knowing that most people get bored before I do, so I worked what lift I could and got above him and then worked it for all I was worth. He went down and I got back up, but couldn’t take the thermal much above the ridge, because there were more soarers about who had launched as they saw me getting up, so I just went and top landed. Most difficult low save I have ever done at Santa Brigida, so I was pretty pleased with myself. Ach, let’s be honest – I was smug as hell.

We had a rest and some sandwiches and the wind got lighter and lighter. People started to write off the day. That’s often a mistake at Santa Brigida, which is legendary for good evening conditions – restitution as the trees give up the heat they’ve collected throughout the day. All the Barcelona guys lobbed off and went straight down, until the final one maintained on the ridge. Time for some restitution. I re-launched at 4pm and easily got up to 360′ ATO, floating about in the evening light. Best bit of the day and everyone apart from Albert, Geoff and me missed it. Never say die, and all that…

See photos of today.

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