While the southern coastal line between Almeria and Malaga are tortured by huge winds, we had a great day out near Onil.
Forecast was, once again, strong eastern winds at the coast. So looking for a winner, near Onil, Reconco. And we won.
Dudo, Rafa Elche, Rafa Caudete, Ismael, Alex, Filip und Moritz jawohl !, were getting their thermals in all afternoon.
Dudo went XC to Villena, Rafa went XC to San Antonio and bummed out near Ibi on his way back. Others got to 1500 m ASL. Splendid days in between lesser days we have.

Foto above, Niviuk Peak, second, new harnass Skyline Racer Dudo, below Rafa Caudete skyhigh with his Chili Skywalk.

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Miguel Poveda in concert tonight, pure flamenco to enjoy in Elche. Gotta get my dancing shoes on, where did I put them. http://www.miguelpoveda.com/

If you look at the flags, you can tell there was too much wind today.

So there are other things to do. Chill, go to a village, go climbing, visit a city, go shoe shopping.

We just went for a drive and met this small party.

A priest, his blonde, his lover, a cook and a band. Always a 'summery' feeling, blue sky.

Nice one today for us. Not expecting to fly and still having more than a good hour of flying. Lovely.

In the morning strong north-western winds, but dying off luckily and with its northtern component just good to fly at the coast.

Meanwhile my buddies from Wales have been in the air as well. We'll all see them in a couple of months. Meanwhile we can enjoy their scenery, by the foto StevieG sent.

Bryncaws near our Swansea sea, Wales.

Not Costa Blance looking like, but flying ! Over the cliffs near Santa Pola. Two young german boys from Dresden, Filip und Moritz.

In the morning weak, in the late afternoon splendid. Very sweet and smoot lift, excellent for low airtimers today.

They were a bit bored chilling the last two days of bad weather. I can only imagine they were too shy to meet them spanish girls downtown Alicante. Adelante chicos !

Christophe, un saludo y recuerdos a los amigos belgas.

Unstable today. Inland no wind, but drizzly. On the coast too much wind. Both no good.

Windy day, eastern winds, lots of clouds.

This mornings flying. Checking Chris's new HOOK. At Cabo, untill things got too strong. 30 km per hour winds at take off, wasn't the best. But after flying at the coast we had a plan for the afternoon and it all worked out.

Last three pictures from the flying this afternoon. Awesome flights over Reconco. Dynamic to get higher up, to where thermals/cloudsuck let us play untill we were cold.

It was easy to get up, easy to bum out. You just had to follow the rigde up in front and then gradually work your way upwind towards the east and do it.

Reconco, it always works better when the winds are cross. And definetely is a good choice when this east is blowing, creating very low clouds near Maigmo. Once passing Maigmo, you get a whole different sky.

10 second window, but missed it.

Weather was as predicted, too much eastern wind, bringing in lots of clouds. Too bad, enjoyed the day, hiking, and having an excellent paella in the woods.

Never to forget no ? 4 stages in flight.

1/ complete check-up
2/ take off
3/ flying
4/ landing

Hola there. Harnasses. Season is nearby. Lots are asking for new gear. Gliders and harnasses. And you know that harnasses are as important as gliders.

In a harnass you should first thing, be comfortable. And not just be comfortable for five minutes, but for maybe hours yeah ?

Ok, so just sitting in a harnass for a few minutes is not enough when trying. Try to sit in it for 20 minutes or so, and see how you feel, how stiff you are. How's your back. You feel like you are sitting awkward ? Try another one.

But do some homework first.

What do you want, a racer, sitting upright, maybe acro, maybe a light one ?

Make a choice, then go for the models.

I like the sup'air harnasses, because they have been around for ages. And serve good quality. Other brands to me, often make them too big, and are a pain to fit in the rucksack. Or are too heavy to take on a plane.

Now this is important. Carrying it up the hill all the time ? You may want to get you a light one then. Or with the charge for luggage in mind on planes nowadays (and more and more, you wanna make a bet ?), it could be a good choice to see what lights there are on the market.

Sup'air has several ones, and the last one I liked the most was the X-Alps. Guess what ?

They stopped making them, damn !

So I want you to show the newest harnass, with irreversable (correcty spelled ??) rucksack.

The sup'air Altirando XP with airbag.

The original Altirando had complaints, the rucksack was too small. It only fit small gliders, vacuum packed. They bettered it. The changes ? The volume is bigger now, and any glider, neatly folded fits.

It weights slightly more (350 grams), because of the better cloth being used for your back.

And now delivered with speedbar and footstrip, which gives you the opportunity to fly it little bit more supine if you please. And it has airbag protection.

If you want one when coming down, maybe let me know beforehand, so I can order. The cost just a little bit more than the original one. But, you get stirrup with it, and it is more comfortable, better designed this one. Ideal for travellers, or pilots who have to hike up the hill. It weighs less than 3 kgs.

Just checked on newest gear for you all, because winds were too strong for us today.

Some foto's sent in by fellow pilots.
first one Teo Viorel flying with the monks in Bir Billing, India
Second one is from Hans Henrik Pederson, Denmark at their CABO.

Third one from Stefan Huysmans, flying over the canal in Belgium.
We ourselves were grounded as the weather is shitty. Sunny, cloudy, sunny, cloudy, sure wil have some drops later in the evening.

This was the closest we could get to flying today. Sunny, cloudy, rainy in the end.

You hate it when you see the locals thumb up, they have been waiting for this rain for months. But not us !

Early morning calls... no I don't think we can do anything either today, figured that out ourselves Nick.

But at 11 in the morning, I felt the sun and saw it burning holes in the cloudy sky. Lets call the troops.
A bit of mistrust I felt at meeting point this afternoon though. Things like : are you sure Nick ? At the coast it is not that strong. No, no, no white horses. You think same site like yesterday ?.... ? ahum...

Now I had to score. And luckily nine years living here, flying daily when you can, helps making the right decisions sometimes....
So after the superb flying today at Palomaret, everybody was a lot more mellow.
Dudo, Imre, Ken and Ismael, later Kike, all managed to get to El Cid and back. And it was easy, the thermals got you up to 1250, some tailwind to get to El Cid and bingo.

All the others got to cloudbase and stayed in the thermal for more than an hour, then needed to land because it was getting too cold up there. Martin made big ears just to get rid of some height and land. Immediately putting his hands between his legs. Nick damned, you have to brief where the sink is ! (a happy kid, Hazel ! and when are you gonna sit on my lap again doing a tandem ?)
Helmut, Arild, Jalmar and Frank, all at cloudbase, hip hip.

The weather was strange. Early morning cloudy. Then gradually more sunny. But very strong eastern winds, norhteastern winds, at the coast. Best to detect on the maps of 'theyr', a website of the Island meteo-institute ( I think private owned, I think, not sure .) You have to pay to have access to that site, but it is one of my favourite tools on iffy days. And of course the phone calls to my friends in different valleys to have a global view.
Once at take off, the plain valley was heated up, and generated the thermals up to the (ice) cold air coming from the northeast. But not bumpy, only higher up some windsheer but nothing dramatic.
Another fantastic day, and this for midwinter.

Pretty windy at take off in the morning at the coast.

Just my Artik and a Boomerang sport in the air, untill it was time to go land, because the sea was getting too nerveus, windspeeds rising.
In the afternoon 1650 m ASL, for most of the pilots. At Reconco it was amazing. Overall lift. I actually better briefed and explained where the sink was today. Feb 2008 !
Oh by the way, the forecast was cloudy. But only blue sky. Alicante showed its nice face again.

That's how we land at 30 km per hour. No brakes, ready to pull the B-lines when you touch ground. Turn around and even with a hurt knee (old basketball injury ...) you easy get it all under control.

Only on gliders with high aspect ratio the risers are sometimes too close to get your hands in between comfortably. But this should work with all DHV2's I guess.

Out of the hat. No way to fly at coast, but inland we found Reconco flyable. Weird, the only valley where the northeasterly wasn't blowing hard.

Also near Caudete there was some flying going on. And Col de Rates, but that was too far north to be good.

When we arrived we saw Antonio and Juan Pedro having their flights over the village of ONIL. Soon after we were airborn. It was nog a big window, just a nice welcome for new arriving pilots from the cold north. Norway, Ireland, and England.

Late afternoon shots. The sun setting already and still flying. From midday we were cautious that the forecasted eastern wind would ruin our day. But it never got to us.

It was a thermalling day, with the odd hammer thermal here and there. But mostly calm.

When we drove home we saw a huge snake being overrun by a car. Unfortunately one cannot avoid it. They sleep on the tarmac, and before you know it you run over them. It is a shame, but what can we do.

When I tell visiting pilots to be aware of snakes and scorpions they look at me as if I am Ozzy Osbourne having a laugh. Well here's the foto that shows you how big those snakes get. Almost two meters and thick as a wrist. If I upset animal lovers with this picture, I am sorry.
One several on my briefings I warn pilots not to land near certain areas, because I know scorpions can make your life less nicer if they pinch you, and imagine a snake like that crawling in your leading edge, realizing it when you in flight already. Sweet dreams.

Eastern winds kicking in. Air from the sea, humid, lowers cloudbase.
Cloudbase at 1250 m ASL, which means just enough to reach El cid.
And that's what Pepe and Dudo reached.

On fotos, part of the decor behind the take off of Palomaret. The movie Asterix and Obelix at the Olympics was shot here last year, and now to be seen in your nearest theatre !
Last year we were not allowed to drive up the hill, due to the filming. Gerard Depardieu, Alain Delon, Claudio Cardinale and many other famous actors were in Alicante for the set. The road which was pretty fucked before all of a sudden was tarmac-ed.
Thanks Hollywood !

And another one. Another flying day.

We needed a change though, we needed some challenge. That's why we were chasing for other sites. Nice cumulus forming inland, and if the southern breeze would kick in, it could be a nice surprising winter day. Slightly catabatic whereever we went. No worries, we can always head back to the coast.

So on Toni's last day, we didn't want to wait too long. And decided to head back and fly with the seabreeze closer to Alicante.
Nothing huge, cloudbase was low due to the seabreeze and some inversion. But outside playing !

Thermals +3 m/s, cloudbase 400 m above take off before we arrived. When we were flying the air got more and more humid due to the seabreeze and cloudbase sank. Nevertheless more than an hour for our dear Irish buddy Toni. See you soon my friend.

Western wind, usuall not to play with. But after the strong cycles in the central hours, it was our time.
Just before the norwegians left, they had a good one.
Irish Toni (above) had his adventure, had to fight to get down when things were veering up before it was too strong for all of us.
Sunburned, because all day in the sun, in the wind. High pressure coming in again, which will give us airtime till this weekend I pressume, then stronger eastern winds.... .

Westwind kept us grounded. Sunny though, and warm, 18 degrees, blue sky. But feet up today.

Lots of clouds today. But terrific. Nothing too strong, nothing too active. I had to push the flying a little bit. Lots of pilots wer a bit stressed by looking at the clouds. And that's good of course. But we knew that these clouds with this meteo conditions are not the worst.

Cloudsuck here and there, but nothing too dramatic. So even pilots who never flew with clouds, got the experience in.

I loved it.

We had little flying in this morning at the cliffs, and were happy to get the phone call we were not expecting. Come on up guys, it is not as bad as it looks. So off inland, looking out the window, hm.... . But once at take off, it was reassuring that more locals than expected were giving us the info we wanted.

"Get your ass in gear or you're gonna miss a bloody good afternoon !"

More colours of today. Thanks Carmen for taking these and sending them. It's me flying the Niviuk Artik by the way.

Carmen together with Alex, are one of our younger pilots down here, eager to get in the air daily. I am sure you who have been here, have met them. Flying Paratech and Axispara. Carmen is working hard to get her share in the fashion world, soon more on her website :
http://www.carmesine.com/

Colours from Spain, the mediterranean, Costa Blanca, Alicante, Santa Pola.

Very strong west this morning, but freaky, very strong east this afternoon. Just like a switch, bang on for the cliffs.

But not for long, the window for take off was maybe half an hour. In the air the higher the stronger.

With the Artik, full speedbar, just 6 km per hour groundspeed at times.

But the view, the easiness of the flying, makes everything so nice. Second foto is looking at the bay of Alicante. That's where carnaval is tonight. At last I can shave and put a wig on. Lets see what it gives. Mañana mas.

A bit of a dodgy weather forecast this morning. Western winds were gonna kick in stronger during the day. But they didn't.

At first pretty strong and cross. Not for lowairtime pilots. Take off was gusty, and in the air, it was knowing where the windflows were not gonna trick you. Best performance for Federico with his testwing Boomerang Sport, 800 m climb. (yes and it is winter)

Later, aaaaah, soooo smoooooooooth, and still getting hiiiiiiigh.

On the first foto you can see the clear sky again, second one you can see in the back, the front which will arrive tomorrow. Shit, no no, tranquilo, we'll see.

Last foto, we're a happy family !

Canadian, German, Belgians, French, Austrian, Irish ! and yes two spanish local pilots. Good friends, no hassles.