Waddel Creek ride/hike

A brief stroll at Natural Bridges state park. This is where many Monarch butterflys breed in November.

Fabrice in action - he looks so cool calm and collected, I won't say what happened next.

Berry Creeks falls.

Silver Cascade, a little higher up Berry creek.

This is one of my favourite hikes on the planet.

Tamsin and Fabrice visit.

It turns out they picked a really good time to visit. I am temporarily retired, the weather was awesome, and my week schedule was open. I let them have a rest day in San Francisco before embarking the on "Ben Tours"

Tamsin wanted Fabrice to experience the Garlic Cuisine, that we had 4 and a half years ago.

A few drinks, and why not ??

Very Fast !!

Lee holding the pilots meeting.

The set up area. Some really nice gliders there

The wind came in gently on Saturday, so some of us set floaters up in the meantime. Kraig was was first on Saturday with Kenny just a few seconds behind, and Jonny right on Kenny's heals.

After racing Kraig and I took a fun flight and got some pictures.
Lee hosted a really fun BBQ.

Sundays competition hotted up a little, with the long course picked (12 miles to sand city and back.) The wind was already blowing in at 11am, and everybody was eager to race having had the experience from yesterday. Jonny's winning time was around 18 minutes meaning an average ground speed of around 40 mph and with the 25 mph crosswind, thats an average airspeed of 48mph !!
Jonny took 1st, Kraig 2nd, Kenny 3rd, these guys were all within seconds of each other. It was really spectacular to watch and especially so when in the air going the other way within 25 feet. I finished right behind Konrad from Brazil for 5th.

There was also a Kingpost class. Donny in 1st, Al in 2nd and Urs in 3rd.

As part of the festival Kites were abundant. This on was particularly captivating.

Marina Festival of the Winds

A few folks arrived early for the festival of the winds. The erroding setup area is crowded by only 8 gliders. We used to be able to set 20 gliders up here and still land up top...

Its the first time I've flown the litespeed at the beach. It was surprizingly very friendly to fly there, however breaking down was a pain and dispite putting the glider o a sleeping bag I still got sand in the control frame.

I missed the big crowd but got a picture anyway. Looking forward to the race tomorrow :)

End of an Era.

The company I have worked in for ten years, made some strategic changes this week, and as a result I am now unemployed.

Well it is summer, and there are so many things I want to do that I am losing control of the lists. I have ready for sometime off. However it feels quite strange going to the gym at 9am and having a mellow workout.

This weekend Marina is holding the "Festival of the Winds". Hang gliding is of course a part of this and the plan is to do a ridge "steeple chase" race. Jonny D, Chris S. and Kraig are coming up from LA to challenge Kenny, the reigning champ. Of course I will have a go to :)

lasting impressions

The below video really captured the feel of the event,
and are some of the folks that really make it all happen.



Here are about 56 Hot ships lined up and ready to go.

Its all over !!

The Final Day was a 49 mile race to goal downwind.

I had a bit of a slow start due to breaking a weak link in a roudy launch, and having to re-launch. I finally made the start line 25 mins behind the main gaggle and decided to just take the previous start time 10mins before rather than wait another 5 mins and risk sinking out. I think this was a mistake as most pilots made goal and that 10 minutes made my score pretty low for the day. Still I did make goal again for the day :)

I lost another 4 places that day putting me in a very respectable 35 out of 57.

Bruce was a couple of places behind me, and Brian did very well for his first international comp placing 46.

Official results are here : http://www.soaringspot.com/scfr2008/results/flex/total/day6.html

day 6

Day 6

An early start today, moving the gliders over to the tow paddock before breakfast.
Some nice wings in this line.
Davis giving his take on the weather for the day and how it relates to the task.

Everyone pluging the task into there GPS's.

Now it is time for action ! I'm gonna go grab my harness and get in line.

Too windy.

Day 5 was pretty windy and not very good conditions. It got worse while we were washing the dirt off our gliders and swiming in the bat shaped pool. Francisco Grand was the training place for the S.F. Giants baseball team some years ago when they were a good team.
We went to a local monument to check out the first archeological dicovery in the US. It was not that impressive.