Continuously raining today, men that's been a while since I've seen this. Strange. But ok, we will have our hot flying days coming up soon. And then we'll be knackered again at the end of the day.
The frenchies have gone, and it was very nice to have them again. Special kind of flying buddies, keep in touch.
Hope you had some flying in, we could only dream of it today. I wonder.

... dancing lessons with Rafa or ...

... flying a good old EDEL ....











.... singing : I'm so sexy with my shirt, so sexy with my shirt, on the catwalk ....

.... just being charming and being Carmen ....









... or just enjoying the view today, your choice ....

You read the papers early morning, and you get shocked by the warning of the crisis we are living in. On the radio, bad news about the records been broken this month, most tornado's in spain since 100 years, heaviest rainfall in 24 hours, record peak of windgusts last weeks, etc... etc... . You have a talk about politics, culture. Third party comes in, he says stop moaning and have a beer. An ex-patriot shows you his middle finger, after you almost hit his shiny OPEL. What else for christ' sake !
Well the goods news. Rafa,Pepe, Kike and others managed to conquer the elements and flew today at Palomaret.
More good news ? It is lovely weather, sunny weather, the pools are nice and life is beautiful.

After the flying we visited Cabo de Tinoso. Famous for its canons which were used during the civil war, they are right on the cliffs overlooking the sea. Marvellous views of the bays of Cartagena, where Hannibal got his elephants ashore.

Vale, ok, some shots of our flying today. We were at Cabo de Tinoso. Southern coastal site. Why ? Because inland it was too unstable, and Alicante and Elche were gonna have rain. So that's why we moved down south to the costs, protected by kilometers of flatland that withheld the thunderstroms and rains we saw in the back.

A very nice soaring day with spectacular views. Landing on the empty beach, ready to splash in the water.

Toni, where were you ?

Too unstable today. Inland westernwinds, offshore winds at the coast so. The only flyable site would have been Calpe, if clouds were not forming too rapidly over the higher mountain ranges nearby.
Later in the day, southern winds kicked in, but unfortunately the sun didn't burn through the clouds to have some late afternoon soaring.

Hope you all got home safe, Graham, Simon and Rodney.

Enjoying tandem flying over the cliffs with Anna.



Crap weather forecast. Wetterzentrale gaves us east, the spanish gave us moderate southwest, some even gave us rain all day. All crap, a monday forecast I would say. We just got up, had a cup of coffee and were very eager to get in the air. And say what, we did it all day long. All day along flying until we were knackered.

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Hamilton is NOT french ok !

Ok ok, ekskuzez, I waz living in ze past, désolé.

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There are approximately 144 400 paragliding pilots in the world. (cfr Erik van der Goot)
The country with the most pilots with 25000 paragliders is France .
Next 20000 pilots in Germany, Japan and Korea.
Next Spain, Italy, Brasil, US, UK, Switserland and Austria.
Only 10 pilots counted for and in 40th place, Albania.

Think twice before going to a bullfight.

Anna from Poland, with Kamil visiting Alicante before moving out and living near Gibraltar
Fabrice and the lady owner of the cherry plantation

Graham, picking cherry's

My dear Kath
rodney flying high above La Solana

whenwe saw this behind take off we packed up and went chilling, it looked as you could ski on it

So as you can tell, we flew. But later in the day it was too unstable. We decided wisely to call it a day. In between Carlos from Villena invited us in his cherry-ranch. Great stuff, big day.

Trying the NOVA Mentor today. Ok, certainly a glider that would fit some pilots. Would think more older pilots, or pilots who love to fly with a glider way high above their head, feeling a bit like paramotoring. Felt very very safe, so safe that it hardly wanted to do wingovers. Hard time to get it into a spiral as well.
Last glider for pilots who want to be safe and still want to give it a go in strong conditions, maybe ?
We flew early today. Early thermals at noon, till it got rough, and dirty.
Then a break in the hacienda of Palomaret.
Got smooth(er) again at 4.30 pm, dying off till the sun was gone at 6 pm.
Locals like Eduardo, Toni, Ismael didn't like it at all. They said, hardly any cloudbase and turbulent at times. Spoiled they are of course.
We could see a sea of clouds just in front of us, looking out towards the sea. Behind some development, but not at all as what predicted.
Finished it off with an ice cold beer, we had 30 degrees celsius today, nose burned.
Again ? Yes again !

For those interested in some Niviuk news, this is the latest ......

http://www.niviuk.com/eng/news_more.asp?id=27

congratulations Urban.

That's why pilots come to Alicante and fly with us. Chill in the morning, enjoy the warm sun, go to the beach, have a dip in the swimming pool, get a cafe con leche, eat a tapa, meet the pilots, move on to the hills, have a couple of hours of flying, and finish the day off with an ice cold beer.

And today was authentic.

It was nice to see Kike, Alex and Pepe amongst the pilots in the air. We all had a fantastic flight, nice and smooth, with sufficient cloudbase. Toni with his HOOK, Graham with his Swing Arcus, which is a classic already.

What more do you want.

At the end of the day the views were so clear today, exceptionally. Because usually we have a foggy outlook towards the sea.
It was nice, hours of flying, lift everywhere, not punchy, smooth, just like we all love it. Just cruising.

It's got to be done. Fancy-ing up the take offs. New windsock poles. Bulletin be painted, because we are expecting the Brasilian female volleyball team soon.

We all wish of course, at the best, we will get the Agost social club ..... who we loooooove ...... as much !

Take care you all !

Today we first flew near Cabo de Tinoso. Never flew there before so it was great. Foto's above take off view. Below Graham landing on the long stetch of beach.

Later we flew at Alhama de Murcia. Great site, if everywhere else it is blown out. Toni had his maiden flight with his brandnew Niviuk Hook and guess what ? He loved it.

I need to get to IKEA, and maybe you as well. Because they have excellent windsocks now for only 2.98 euros. They are the perfect size for our sport, so go get them.

Again, thunderstorms inland, too instable and western winds. One more day tomorrow, and then back to normal ? Lets hope so. Weather forecasts are always right, just the timing sometimes.
But, we did something for paragliding. Toni(yes the Irish is still around, can't get rid of him !) helped me out, cementing again some construction for windsocks at the Cabo. Now I have a wincksock-pole with a padlock at the bottom. Because yes, our colourful windsocks are easily stolen on our sites. Nothing too criminal, just little kids I guess who love those colourful windsocks, no harm done. But, lets make it a little bit more difficult for them.

Hello up there.
Above you see a foto of a reserve attachment on an sup air Altix harnass, or a EVO XC harnass of sup air.
Well lately there has been problems throwing the reserve, as the cord (white) was stitched to the velcro. And with all your power you couldn't get the reserve loose. I did sell quite a lot of sup'air harnasses of that kind. So all who read this please check. What I do is I do tape the white cord, so it can't get 'stitched, burned' to the velcro, ok ?
If you have any questions please ask, this is important.

(I used the foto's Toni Davis, Ireland, sent me as info from the Northern paragliding club in England. I do not know them, I was so free to use the foto. If anyone of their club reads this, I hope this is ok. It is in everybody's general interest so. God what a paranoia world we live in, no ?)

Not flying today. Thunderstorms, lightning, thunder. Jesus Christ it was dark.

Take off Chinorlet, but clouds too tough to fly, as you can see.

John and Toni at Peña Rubia. Climbs to 1800 m, which is 800 mete above take off. But we had to be in time to get out of the air. Overall cumulus congestus development early afternoon.
Pepe did well and landed in Banyeres, a little XC. After landing he called immediately to ask me to get my pilots on the ground, because of the danger. But we were already thinking about having our cafe con leche, anyway much appreciated Pepe !

Rafa from Caudete with his skywalk Chili. It was rough enough at the end of this flight, with overdevelopment all over the valleys.

Somebody left his dancing shoes at take off Palomaret, please get in touch.

As you can see cloudy again. But we played and how. Excellent flying, bit surprisingly after checking out Peña Rubia (top to bottoms) and Reconco (too off to be good).

It is about time that the weather gets back to normal.

Phil, J. , hope you are home safe, un abrazo.

Did you try this yet ?

http://www.brl.ntt.co.jp/people/hara/fly.swf

Flying at Reconco today.
Very cloudy at the coast, clouds coming in from the east. So we planned to fly more inland, early in the day, before the front was coming in late afternoon.
Passing Maigmo, it all cleared up, blue sky. Take off, little breeze south, off we went.

We didn't have time for a second flight, as the weather was coming in from the back. In no time we could see towering cumulus developing. Winds in no time were getting stronger.