The forecast was far from clear cut today. High cloud but clearing then clouding over, wind west in the interior but SW at the coast. Pick a site, any site….

We did a lot of phoning around getting weather reports from nearly the whole of Girona province and then settled on Sant Pere de Rodes, as we were going to see our friends Rolf and Dolores in Roses later and that would be the most convenient. We hooked up with Roger and Felix to share a ride and as we were walking up we were amazed to see a couple of pilots flying the north side. The place was packed with loads of pilots milling around. As we got to the launch we heard the words you least want to hear when getting to a flying site: “You can’t launch. We’re waiting for the air ambulance”. Unfortunately, the pilot was our friend Carlos, one of the sweetest guys around. He had a twist in his risers and spun back into the hill and smashed his knee on a rock.

Nobody seemed to have any first aid experience, so although I am a bit rusty, Geoff and I did what we could and the helicopter seemed to take ages. Eventually they did winch him off to great cheers from everyone. Hope he gets better soon.

It was still north and people started lobbing off pretty much as soon as the helicopter went. All had sled rides to the beach. Then it went west and we were all holding our breath and crossing our fingers that it would turn south (which is where all our cars were). It did and we flew down. Not much of a flight, but at least we flew, and always better to fly down than walk down!

See photos of today.

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