The forecast wasn’t promising in the mountains for today, so we headed back from our holiday last night and arrived home late in the evening. East was supposed to be best today, but of course the forecast changed, so it was probably fine at Organya or Berga too. Never mind. Instead, we had more test flying to do and wanted a top-landable site so we could swap gliders. The forecast was good for Santa Brigida, so we headed there.

The track is nearly clear of snow, but we couldn’t make it up the last bit without a bit of slipping and sliding, so we parked up and walked the rest of the way. Tanz, Albert and Enric were already there. It was strong and a little off to the east, and Albert didn’t make it look a great deal of fun. Enric thermalled up high, but had to go and land at the bottom since he had left his car lights on (maybe another XC tip in the making?). The wind seemed to be picking up and the thermal gusts were very strong, so I decided I would probably not learn too much test flying in those conditions, so we waited. A whole bunch of others turned up and Marc and Sergi went into orbit and floated all over the valley. Oriol also had a really good flight and Geoff, Andreu and I launched at 3pm, when things had calmed a little. Still thermals everywhere and easy to get high. Geoff top landed to be able to swap gliders, but I had some trouble locating any sink and missed two landing slots when the others sneaked in before me and I had to go round again. As I finally found some useful sink I looked across to the monastery flag and saw it was due east – 90 degrees off. Hmmmm. And that was that. I had a bumpy ride being drilled all the way to the bottom landing field.

I got a quick lift back up with Joan, Albert and Pep, but it was so far off it didn’t seem sensible to launch. So what usually happens when the locals think better of it? Yep, a bunch of tourists arrive and take off anyway. This group was from Belgium on a trip to test Niviuk gliders. They had an excellent flight at Santa Brigida yesterday and good flying at Puig d’Afrou this morning and were keen to get some more. The first plummeted, but the second went up. Geoff followed in hot pursuit and was rewarded with a nice bonus flight, before top landing again for a well deserved beer.

See photos of today.

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