Blue moon

I looked up and it was bright.

Closed till the 10th of january, be difficult to check my emails,but I'll try.

Happy newyear

We wish you all a very happy newyear and an excellent 2010.

We are closed till the 10th of january. Take care my friends.

Castle visit checking wind

Went up to the castles to check wind, because as you know castles are build on top of hills. Too windy up there, southwesternwinds. The only place to fly could have been Toix, but my last pilot of the year left too early to go to Toix. So relaxed and went hiking again, which was very nice in such a nice temperatures. If this is the planet warming up, then I am just enjoying it for the moment. If it is really the planet warming up, then it is scary, because last days we had 20 degrees and more, which is a bit much, even for us down here.

As a paraglider you look up don't you. You watch clouds, how they race, or how they standstill. I also look up at night, to see if it is a clear night, to see if clouds are moving, if there are any. Well I am definetely gonna look up tomorrow and see the full moon. That full moon will be special, as that happens once in a blue moon... .
Blue moon ?

Blue moon is a second full moon in a month, which is peculiar. And very special if this happens on newyears eve.

Will the moon be blue ? Of course not. When does a moon turn blue ? Never. So there is a phrase saying, I'll mary you lady, under a blue moon. Poor girl.

The moon was blue though for more than two years. After the Krakatau, vulcan in Sumatra Indonesia, exploded more than hundred years ago. It was told that they could here a "bang" even 600 km away. It had the force of a 100 megaton nuclear bomb. The ash of the eruption was the reason the moon was seen blue.
I don't know if you were interested. I am, as a paraglider pilot I have been looking up for lots of years now.

Blue moonshine on the contrary is a very potential marihuana plant, originally early nineties, mix of thai-seed with afghan. I was told.

Deutsche piloten mit Doyouwanna - Alicante

Three Germans visiting Doyouwanna, Alicante. This december. Check out their film on youtube of course, here it is, fliegen in Alicante .

Went hiking today, as there was an alert. Windgusts up to 70 km per hour on the forecast. But no wind, if you were sheltered behind Aitana like in Benidorm. And with the inversion at the coast, winds were actually NUL. But in the distance inland we could see mean clouds which predicted lots of bad weather for Andalucia and inland Castilla la Mancha.

Hike up to the tops of Orito, and checked out where our next to be opened southwestern site take off could be set. Next time you're here, we'll fly this new one.

Peña Rubia west

Buenas dias

Andreij had a flight near Peña Rubia today. After lots of kilometers we find a spot where it was flyable. Winds got lot stronger (again) later on, so we decided to call it a day, watching the clouds racing above our head. A freaky weather day, gusts predicted to 80 km per hour, but was well exagerated. But always better to check the forecasts of course, to know what possible can happen.

Villena, La Solana

Andrzej, Polish pilot

We were flying over Villena, La Solana. That was the only place I found where it was suitable to play. Strong wind in the morning and dropping to no winds in the afternoon. Freaky weather, again, warm 20 degrees celsius at midday, but temperature dropping by later afternoon to 15 degrees. Sky was red tonight, what weather shall bring tomorrow is a guess.

Down below some of my friends,

Mary Lou

Ainhoa

Juan Pedro,

Thomas

This was published in the leading french magazine, PARAPENTE MAG.

Our site Toix was nominated as one of the most beautiful spot to fly around the mediterranean.
Text and foto's : doyouwanna

Morro de Toix, Calpe

Good days and bad days at Toix. Winds were on and not too strong, actually they were bang on, and laminar at 18 km per hour. With a blue sky, we would have jumped in the air. But it looked all too suspicious with dark cloud approaching from Alicante towards Calpe. Cloud thickening above us. So we didn't take off, too much respect for the conditions.

Foto by Henrik Sweden, of a good day at Toix, sunset flying.

What if Jesus was a female ?

If Jesus was a female,

would pope be a four letter word ?

Christmas in Alicante this year

Lousy, lazy today. Lots of winds in the morning but dying off to zero in the afternoon. It got all overcast and rainy in the end. Xmas was better spent at the table I guess.

Press article Doyouwanna

This week this was published in the Costa Blanca News down here. Nice for us.

A warm december day

A lovely day, without flying though.

An ugly morning with clouds and rain. But a beautiful afternoon, sunny and 20 degrees down here in Alicante.

But winds were too strong and southwest.

http://www.parapente.cl/video/91/raul-jugando-con-la-ladera

There is only 1 Raul ... enjoy !

This is a sunflower growing in my garden. The result of the warmest november, beginning of december month in last decades. Climate change ? Who knows, but strange though. I also do remember that Norwegian pilots told me, that the tree line on their hills was higher than when they were a kid. Before some cabins could be seen above the tree line, now trees were surrounding the cabins.

As paragliders we spend huge amounts on our hills, we pretend to be all meteo guru's. On the very busy and active paragliding.com forum I would like to ask if paragliders all over the world if they noticed any change in climate during their flying carreers. Soon I'll open this thread for them. It is just so surprisingly that while Copenhagen was so hot, nobody asked this question on the forum.

Tuesday today, rainy in the morning, late afternoon sunshine. I passed Buenos Aires at 4 pm and it must have been flyable. It is not one of our 'main' sites, but above an urbanisation near Elche. A winter site lets say. Good to fly when sun burns through and winds are weak late afternoons.

Costa Blanca under a grey carpet

Grey sky, with just a sunny spell around midday. Was not the best day to go out and fly.
Surely some drizzle on our hills inland. Stayed home, no pilots around this time. Next week a couple of pilots will visit Alicante, and it looks lots better than this week for them.

Take care.

Winter flying Alicante, indeed thermals

Told ya. High pressure, blue sky and thermals would be there, and they were.

Good old Kike, Egi, Toon and me in the air. Some winter thermals, made it all possible to fly till hands froze off, and topland.

For Carlitos it was too cold to fly, he just watched us dancing the po-go to warm up.

Toon's last day today, who made his stay in Alicante all worth it.

Pretty cold in Alicante

We are right under the center of the high tomorrow at midday. We should get some flying in. As long as it ain't too cloudy we should even get nice thermals in. But I don't want to bet on that though.

Peña Rubia, Villena flying

Ismael, Toon and me, feet off the ground this time at Peña Rubia. This must have been the only place where the winds were on. Not strong enough to have hours of flying up and down to Biar, but still Toon had his four flights in today. Which kinda made his week, together with daily 20 k hikes in the mountains near Xorret de Cati.

Sunrise Alicante

red sky in the morning

sailors warning

lets see what we'll get today

Alicante marina

Blue sky and 20 degrees in Alicante today, but too much wind.

chill out alicante

Feet up, too windy.

Snow in Alicante

Yes, it has been cold. Yes, it has been snowing. A remarkable day for us. Our tophills in the snow and what a pretty sight it was.

Downtown, business as usual.

Alicante

Ok, it is not flying, so lets have a laugh, for all those who fancy,
a male striptease.

Costa Blanca

Tomorrow sunshine again after a good day of rain. Colours will be back, after a grey day.

Alicante winter

We are hit by winter weather. Mountains are under cloud, just at the coast it didn't rain today. Although we could need a bit of moist. As Alicante together with Almeria is one of the dryest area's in Spain. Desertlike on our near southerfaced hills.

Kitesurfers were having fun, as winds gusted up to 50 km per hour. A break so, and it'll be so for more than one day. Upcoming week will be cold as well.

Cabo de Santa Pola

Cloudy all over, mist, take offs in the mist, that's the info we got early morning.
All news is about the cold that is gonna arrive. And in our houses this means cold ... . As spanish houses are badly insulated, or not insulated at all.

So we are ready, have firewood and got the old electric stoves out just in case next week it is really gonna be freezing. Temperatures will drop to 6 degrees celsius and this feels cold. A different cold than up north, it gets to your bones.

Anyway, we had to choose to go inland and hope for some sun that burned off some cloud, or stay at the coast and hope for an easterly breeze at the cliffs of Santa Pola.

We stayed at the coast and had half hour of flying in. Not so good today, but again feet off the ground. Lets hope you all had some flying in as well.

summery day

A very inverted sky. Almost able to cut through with a knife. Hardly a thermal, scratching and waiting for a + 0.5.

We flew at Palomaret, there were more pilots around than thermals.

This week was an all in by Skywalk it looked like. Cayenne3, the mountain glider Arriba, and the proto Poison3.
It was also the week of Ian, who did superb under his new wing Ozone BuzzZ. So what is said on different forums is through, this is an awesome glider, and lots of pilots shouldn't doubt getting this one.

Toni Swiss pilot under his Swing glider.

Peter Gick under his Skywalk C3.

Bernt in the sky, always top of the stack, and Reinhold ready for launch at Reconco.

Lots of pilots, local pilots will not believe we took these photo's this afternoon. But actually we did of course.

Why ? Well it was so cloudy at the coast, it was hard to believe we were gonna find a decent site to fly on. But we did, of course ... .

We left for Reconco, as the sun was shining there since early day. And not like at the coast only from midday onwards.

So up to Onil, to enjoy some hours of decent thermalling weather, meanwhile watching towards the coastline and seeing clouds building up.

Thermals up to 5 m/s were second were registered. Not so bad for a lousy Alicante december day I would say.

All german pilots present and only one british and one swiss pilot. I have to buy Der Spiegel and practice my Japanese-German.

How about us Copenhagen ?

Peter Gick, one of our german guests, also flying Skywalk, Cayenne3, on his way back from Maigmo.
Today was a fantastic december day. Thermals were present, sun was shining of course, and flying was more than soaring up and down the comfort zone. The trick was to get over the hill ridge, and then use the lee thermal. I do have lots of respect for lee thermalling. I need height before I feel safe. Had some close calls before, even throwing my reserve once flying too sportive in a lee thermal. So this was not my best day today, but for those who adventured it, it was fabulous. We flew from 12 am till 4.30 pm, and it is december the 8th.

Bernt Staht, ex team pilot of Advance, and since april 2009 team pilot of Skywalk. He let me fly his Skywalk Poison 3, the trimmed one, the race model.

I loved it and felt alive. Sometimes I feel I should go back to the dhv 2/3 models again. But guiding, taking foto's, microphone in hand, sometimes it is too stressy for that.

But, I love the feeling, the liveliness of the machine.

Come on, lets be serious, if you have an Alfa Romeo under your but, you feel more alive than driving a bullet proof VW Golf diesel no ? That's what I mean. It feels more challenging, it gets you a value, it is all just more sexy. Especially if you compare this all, with my Ozone Addict2 I have, I think it is the most dull glider I ever had. Anybody wants it ? 1000 euros it is yours. Why did I buy it ? Beats me. Had no money and had to decide quick.