Today was a day of superlatives for me. I did the shortest distance; I was fastest to the landing field, and I had the briefest flight. How cool am I?

We went to Berga and met up with Nicky and also Maria and Jorge who are visiting from Colombia. After a quick coffee, we headed up to the Segunda Maria, where it was very light. The sky was clear apart from some interesting high cloud. It seemed early and quite stable, so we waited a chatted for a while and eventually Geoff persuaded Nicky that she was the local and should launch first. She picked a fine time to go, with two vultures coming over us just after she took off, but the lift was so close to the ridge that it was impossible to turn. She slowly sunk out and the rest of us decided to wait it out some more. Ages after we thought she had landed, there she was again! Impressive tenacity.

While she was struggling, a local turned up and told us the day would be over by 4pm and it would be better to launch at 3pm, which is the height of the day. My argument that it’s been consistently better later was rebuffed with the assertion that that may be the case at Santa Brigida, but not in Berga.

I should have gone with my instinct and waited… as it was I launched and sank straight out. There were bubbles, but I couldn’t thermal as I was too close to the ridge/trees. Maria faired a little better, but also landed soon after taking off. Ten minutes later, Jorge did well to get up and flew across to the Primera Maria, where he climbed out. Geoff did well too, having a nice flight and then landing back at Espais.

We got a ride back up for the car and Geoff had another go, but by this time it was late, but he still had a good flight, eventually landing at the motocross field. Everyone had had to dash off, so we had our apres vol beer at the local reservoir.

See photos of today.

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