El cid, palomaret, all fine today.
I have a red nose again, forgot suncream, I know mom.

But it was fun all the way. Last day for some of us, leaving tomorrow after a succesful 5 out of 7 days flying. And quality flying at Carrascoy, Col de Rates, Cabo en Palomaret, El Cid.
Some days were iffy, and needed some skills to stay up in the thermals, some days were a bit strong at take off, but that's practice practice practice.
This morning thermals were there for our every skilled swedish pilots and Glynn, the welsh !
This afternoon the mother mountain of Alicante did it again for all of us. Cloudbase for everyone.

And don't you worry guys, those loose and barking dogs at take off, we only have when a visiting pilot from Valencia comes around. And he's an instructor, blimey !
Oh, if he reads this, I'm gonna get it. Oh shit.

We had a day out at Sella. Enjoying the scenery, the sun, the paella, the company. But our gliders stayed in the car. Northeastern winds blowing too strong to play even last minute.

Some very nice foto's from Frans, chief Freeparagliders Belgium ( FAQ : freeparagliders doesn't mean you get a free paraglider, it is just funny belgian-english)

And one foto of Jan Bernaerts, zooming in on Frans, the man himself, under his HOOK.

Shots were taken at Carche, La Cortina and good old Cabo. Thanks Frans, Jan, soon worldwide on flickr.

No flying today. Bad weather.

Rastaman Hendrie at take off Carrascoy.
Flying above the valley of Librilla.
Niviuk Ice Peak, the arch is very much like a Gin Boom ain't it.

Carrascoy today, near Murcia.
Season started to hear down south a bit when winds start blowing northwest. So we did have our first day of autumn thermals in Carrascoy.
With its height difference of 650 m always a treat for everyone. Low airtimers bummed out (all the time ....) and, more experience had one hour and a half of thermal flying.

Carrascoy is overlooking the Librilla valley, with on its opposite side the Sierra de Espuña. A magnificient mountain range not known by the beachcombers visiting our region. Maybe better, otherwise we find Dick Turpin's bars up there as well.

I do have very nice foto's, but the blog- system is not uploading them. I keep em aside for ya.

Bad day in Alicante today, very wet, very wet.

Time to top up some meteo knowledge, trying to understand the weather. But the more books your read, the less certain you are about your predictions. But it is such an amazing thing, the weather. Keep it up Al.

Foto above was last nights sky. Something was going on up there, forecasted rain and thunderstorms.

Thanks Tony for the foto, I thought I was the only one who love blue sky and palmtrees.

Foto taken last week, during Tony's stay. Have a look at his foto website of his stay last week :

http://picasaweb.google.com/tonyd151/Doyouwannaoct2007?authkey=AGq7GP_27tM

Cojonudo ! This means brilliant in English. Especially if you don't expect flying.

Early at the cliffs of Santa Pola, later on inland. And the last bit of flying was nothing we thought of when we looked inland to the growing clouds. But again the breeze withheld the bad weather and we could thermal up to the clouds and play.

On foto, Glynn who just arrived today with an after-fly coffee.

Youngsters Patrick and Kid. Kid is still elementary pilot but has been doing well. Patrick is a novice pilot and wants to fly acro.

Down below how are take off can look like. Sleep tight Oke (Oke is his name, yes it is)

A whole day of paragliding.

Knowing maybe this week no other site than coastal site, the decision was unanimously made. INLAND !!
So here we go, hay-hi hay-ho !
Off for a 80 km drive to my most far site I visit, Col de Rates.
The site on itself is beautiful, but too close to the sea to ever get high cloudbase. Days with 500 climb are very rare for instance. Anyway it is the choice if in southern Alicante you're stuck with clouds. And it is the choice in autumn when Monte Cabrer, San Antonio are covered in clouds.
When we arrived, some local pilots, Nacho, Mirko, Mani, Pedro were soaring already.
So up we drove.

We had to brief to get all pilots ready for spirals and big ears because the incoming northeast eastern air from the sea was gonna get our already low cloudbase lower and lower.
But it was brilliant, all flew nicely in and out of the clouds. And most important I think, for lots it was the first time experience with flying in and out of those clouds harmless. Smooth cloudsuck, new for some of us.

Next days, it looks like more clouds are gonna hit us, so we'll have to look for sites near the coast.

I saw very controlled take offs, to very uncontrolled landings today. Be careful guys, stay fit, do groundhandling, don't let the glider fly with you, YOU have to fly the glider. Bye bye.

By this, I want to congratulate my good old brother-in-law Hassan for running the Antwerp race. Hip hip hip ? Hoera !

After the heavy rain of yesterday, we had a summerday again. You easily forget how bad the weather was the day before if you have such a cristal blue sky to fly in.

After the rain, high pressure kicking in, resulting in low cloudbase. So we decided to stay low and play on our coastal site.

When we packed and rushed to the bar to see the rugby semi final France England, some pilots were flying under the lights of the lighthouse.

Next days we'll be having lots of norhteast, maybe Col de Rates, San Antonio, Hondon, maybe even Carrascoy, and definetely some Cabo.

Patrick was amusing himself under his Gin glider. He is the founder of Top Gun Acro in Britain, and I do like his wingovers actually. He is young, eager to get into acro flying, I wish him and his mates all the best.

Kid flew his first real soaring, and toplanded at the cliffs. Keep it up Kid, you got the moves, and you look like a natural to be honest.

Thanks Jan for sending me this picture. Retrieval, navette bus with the spanish getting rowdy.

Rainy today, big black clouds. No flying no.

A very nice foto-show by Frans, Belgian pilot who comes and visit us regularly, have a look :

http://lopa.250free.com/fp/frans/Alicante%20October%202007.wmv

Carasqueta today, col de carrasqueta, wher the vuelta (spanish tour de france) passed yearly years ago. It is well known for cyclists to cycle up to the 1100 m col and this from sea level.

It is behind the village Jijona known for the production of Turron.

Got there at noon and flew out to check the air. But it was not so smooth as we had thought. Winds were still off west, meteo wind, the breeze the valley breeze the thermals were not present yet.

Later the thermals were, hitting you in the valley, not near the hill where it was rock'n roll till the end of the afternoon.

We were flying on the lee side definetely, and could tell as clouds were moving in from behind us. But still it was safe to fly and enjoy this mountain with its spectacular view.

7 pm, sunday evening

Colours in the afternoon !
Our Mediterranean Sea, so colouful with the bright sun on it. What a difference to the sights inland today.
Spot the pebble !






Spot the pebble.
And spot the glider in Belgian colours. What a statement Ake ! Very brave.


last foto :
7 pm, still jolly good times.

Richard, an American living in Neufchatel France.

"do I really have to fly again ?"

Today's fotos of our morning flying.

It looked pretty crap in the morning looking inland. But hey, trust the guide eh !

We went for it and we had some awesome flying over Palomaret.

And even a relax, chill, cafe con leche in our famous Hacienda El Palomaret down below.

We flew untill clouds were sucking too nicely. Too nicely to be 100 procent safe, too nicely to fly stressfree.

So we left for the coast.

Early chase for XC at Caudete. Got up in the air, but clouds were forming rapidly. In the back cumulus congestus and soon gusty in the air. S o we all landed, watching the sky getting angrier and angrier. Untill no more wind, windstill, no more cloud formation near our hill, just a huge screen not allowing any convection. Damn, game over.

We all did some top to bottom from Caudete, which on its own is a 650 m height difference.

Later on some soaring for over an hour for some of us at the coast. Always some flying in Alicante as you know.

Foto's of some of our fellows. Below Collin under his boat, I mean his Bolero, but looks like a boat isn't it, its huge.

Shepherds' delight,

soooooooooooooorry

Rred sky at night, shippers' delite ? If this is correct, we'll be flying tomorrow.

Briefing at landing Palo. Easy, you use the huge window on your left,
you do not fly over the landing spot itself, for obvious reasons. You are closer to eventual rotor, your are closer to lee thermals, you are acting like the local pilots, so organised landings.
Just what didn't happen with a visiting 'top' pilot.
I came in with tandem, which has on its own as "gentlemens' agreement" priority, nicely as it should. On my right another coming in somewhat higher than me. Now if you come in and you do not have enough height difference with other incoming pilot, it is most reasonable to pull in big ears, so you come in with a little bit more - hence safer - , height difference. Follow ? (actually basic stuff)
Now the other one was making 360 turns, so was coming in low beside me. So me making big ears was unreasonable at that point.
Result, I could not land on the usual spot with my passenger, because I had to give room to the glider who all of a sudden was close behind me, obviously not knowing what to do.
Anyway, there was enough field lower down to have my passenger and me safe on the ground.
No problem, I take second option and go land further down.
The funny thing is, that when I spoke to the pilot, he said he had no problem, of course he didn't.
What he said was even more funny, "where did you come from all of a sudden ?".
Now that was scary .....
Anyway let it not spoil the fun of all day thermalling nad having fun with lots of pilots. Although the sun was screened, the thermals were present. All due to the upper northern winds. Somewhat turbulent when the breeze hit the thermals.
Fantastic !

Good day, bad day.
Must be one of the most stressfull days of a paragliding guide. All weather forecasts pointing out a southwesterly, strong inland, breezy at the coast. So where do you go ?
To a southwesterly site at the coast no ? As always !
Got there, ... , too weak, stayed there, ... , too weak, ...., waited a bit, too weak.....
BUT
Had info from a local pilot that Benidorm was having a ligth southeastern breeze, hmmmm .
Off we went and flew at La Cortina.
I think Frans and Marcel did best today. As old time soarers in Belgium they sniffed when it was dying off, so toplanded and took off when it was breezy enough again.
In the end we heard lots of other pilots got more frustrated than we did. Not a very good day, weather against us, although very very hot and mucho mucho sol, but winds didn't kick in. Only inland and around Alicante, where winds were still strong and offshore when we arrived back home.
Some french pilots arrived, all in good spirits as their rugby team kicked New Zealand's ass in the world cup.

this is an nice video, especially the end
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x23ilw_hibernal-maroc_extreme

And the sky today. Fantastic. We left early for Carche, big site near Jumilla.

Frans couldn't wait and took his HOOK for ride. Everybody flew, everybody after a while bummed out.

Not the local crack Dudo, who flew 44 km direction home.

Conditions got strong, to very strong. Julian registered 6 m/s thermals. Northwestern wind, cold air from the north so, and still the very high sun heating up the valleys, can't be missed.

Cloudbase was not epic, but good enough to go places.

All were a bit knackered after enjoying the fiestas last night, and after their flying today.

Mañana mas.

Mamatus
The strange hanging clouds beneath a storm are called Mamatus clouds. They usually only appear in very strong storms. This thunderstorm we had yesterday beat every other thunderstorms I have seen in my life.

In the afternoon it all cleared up, and we flew, as you could read yesterday.

Todays flying. At Cabo, foto's taken before.

In the mornin torrential rain, heavy thunderstorms, raining cats and gods, at midday it all calmed down, and we had terrific flying at Cabo.

One hour for Wendy, under her little little little Bolero.

In the evening we enjoyed the fiestas in my village El Altet. Bi of a headake.

Off to Carche I guess today, yes the big one !

publicity for us flying at the Cabo, ar we getting back to normal ? are we tolerated fully again soon ? This advertising looks like advertisements we had 10 years ago, when they sold the houses making it popular by letting know you could fly PARAPENTE near your house. So fingers crossed, 15 december the final results will arrive about the site Cabo de Santa Pola.

Anyway, Rafa from Caudete flew at Caudete today, late in the afternoon. When I got this info that inland it was clearing up, we rushed to Hondon. But too cloudy, too iffy to fly.

Lots of regions in Spain, especially Andalucia, the southern part of Spain was under alert. So we saw huge clouds, cumulus nimbus inland et..., but hardly a drop of rain in Alicante of course.

Tomorrow it looks like the storms move upwards to Catalonia where they usually belong this time of the year, so we should get some nice flying in again.

Aaarrgh, too windy to be good. At 11 at take off, just turned east safe to fly at the cliffs. But already windlines on the med. So day off.

Foto is taken on the site but not today. Nice colours eh ?

And thanks all of you who send a message do our Antolino, he appreciated it a lot and had to hassle all his nurses for translation, I hope there were no naughty words. Thanks !!!

Still sweaty after a whole day of flying. Everybody must have gotten several hours in thermalling. Registered 6 m/s thermals early midday.
Then we could clearly see the breeze coming in, crawling from the sea. Jan who was the highest at the moment, got some more convergence lift, and peaked high.
I had tandems to do, yes on my new Niviuk Takoo.
A front in the western regions of Spain could bother us from wednesday onwards I guess.
Lets hope Alicante shows his nice side so we can still play at the coastal sites.

My email address temporarily is :
doyouwanna@telefonica.net
or call on
0034 606 781 180 -
On the hill no signal, so maybe later in the early evenings, ok ? Sorry for the inconvenience....
Nick