With the forecast deteriorating, we thought we’d better try and get something out of the day. We had several hours worth of meetings in the morning, but it was still sunny by the time we finished, so we rushed out. It was due to cloud over in the afternoon and the wind was supposed to be east, so we thought we’d try Santa Brigida. While the sun was out it would certainly be thermic enough to bring the wind on. First though, we had to see how the new car would cope with the track up. What a difference 4 x 4 makes. We got up no problem, but probably won’t be ferrying people up and down like we used to.

When we got to the top conditions were fine, the wind was light and on, so I launched to find it very turbulent. East is never that good at Santa Brigida, and the wind can curl over the ridge to the left and make it bumpy. I had a first attempt at top landing, and plummeted like a stone, so much so, that I didn’t have the time to get my feet out of the harness nice and high. Once on final I couldn’t get my foot out of the pod, so couldn’t get myself upright and scraped the edge with my bum before instigating a swoop to overshoot. It was a close shave…

As I was flying, Marc arrived and it was lovely to see him. We spent a happy hour catching up and then realised that the wind had turned east completely. Marc flew but went down and we waited it out for another hour and suddenly the wind came on again. Geoff flew first and got up easily, and reported smooth conditions. As soon as I launched, he came on the radio again to say that it had just got rough again. I flew for about 5 minutes and the thermals seemed to want to grab the tips all the time, but when you flew towards the tug there was nothing there. It wasn’t pleasant, so I just landed again. Not great flying, but at least we got back in the air.

We had fun and games trying to pack Marc’s Peak II. It has rods in the trailing edge and leading edge, and it’s a bit like doing a puzzle. Four hands, three straps and a lot of ‘constructive’ advice from Geoff later, we had the damn thing in the bag.

See photos of today.

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