Another taste of Alicante. All over Spain, warning weather forecasts. Strong winds up to 80 km per hour, and severe snowfall. Not for us fortunately. We had some good hours of flying under our belt, when sun was setting.

Sweden happy.

First part of the day. Arriving at Toix, briefing, lets go.
All in the air, most of the pilots above Sierra Bernia, epic.

Second part of the day,

why not go soaring late afternoon, done.

Strangely enough there were local pilots at take off not taking off. Too strong winds. It didn't feel that way, but hey listen to them, they're my buddies. But I had the impression that one was making the other one more nerveus than needed. And that happens amongst humans, we have that 'sheep' attitude don't we.

But after some waiting, it really felt good, so all in the air.

Third part of the day,

yes beer o'clock, this is the swedish group present, who all had a fantastic taste of how Alicante can be.

Below Lars who organised this whole trip.

What impressed me the most, was the excellent handlings at take off. Swedish schooling, so obvious.
It needs to be said, part of the local pilots could do with some more groundhandling. Local pilots, yes friends of mine, who fly since years, sometimes still fuck up at take off. Or maybe they shouldn't fly that class of glider, maybe they should downgrade their glider, and have more fun, and confidence.
Anyway by this, probably upsetting a local buddy, but it is all about safety.

Who I am not gonna upset today, is good old Dudo, who flew from Palomaret to Almudaina, XC in february, respect !

Even our parrot-pigeons weren't flying today.

One female pigeon let loose, other male pigeons have to try to score. The best scorer winds. Weird game, lots of money to be won though.

Again Spain under alert this winter. Madrid has never seen that much snow in a long time. Malaga down south suffered from a tornado. We were all warned by repeated weather forecast, that weather was very unstable, and heave rainfall, snowfall could cause severe problems.
Didn't fly.

Lets drink to the hard working people, lets drink to the salt of the earth !

Always the same guys, always the same guys who are doing this for paragliding. I guess this is everywhere. They need all our respect.

Yesterday morning already they were workin their ass off to smoothen the take off of Palomaret. Today with shovels and tools they were flattening and hardening the new put earth, gravel. A bit thank you guys. On foto top you see, Toni our president of the club and his best friend Jose Luis.

Below Antolino, with a sneeze and Miguel.

Group : Miguel, Pepe, Antolino, Toni, Raul, Toni, Jose Luis, Eduardo and Antonio. Guys, pilots who don't fly every day, because they have to work. But passionate pilots who are always there with a helping hand.

This week, I will renew the bulletin board and cement more, to install proper windsocks, take off and landings. That'll be my share.

I hope you all appreciate this. We work hard to maintain our sites hassle free, and I tell you it is a though job to clean' em up and make'em accesable for all pilots. It is not easy. With the drought, the erosion, it is difficult to keep them usersfriendly. Lets not talk about the rewardless efforts that Toni (our president of the club) makes, to achieve permits to keep the sites open.

I especially address (mainly german, austrian) pilots, who should think twice coming down to Spain and using the playgrounds, just as if its theirs.

They should be aware that this involves a huge cost, by clubs, local pilots etc. A huge cost and effort in labour and money.

I address especially them, because as no-one else they should show respect. Because if we go to their sites, we often have to prove we can read and write, before we may even think about using their sites.

You know me, straightforward, expressing myself whenever I feel the need to. I hope I made some people think.

Welcome Lars and friends by the way, thanks for the present you brought from the Skarmflyg club in Stockholm Sweden, appreciated. It'll keep me warm this week.

Their webpage :_ http://www.fenixflyg.se/

And again a low pressure over the Azores. Again we got hit with strong winds. Luckily yesterday we filled our boots, because upcoming days not looking good.

Kordian send me his shooting from yesterday, quality is not the best, so if you don't like it, shut your eyes but listen to, and dream of the january thermals on his screaming vario.
http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=bmuFONcUY3E

Some shots of today, just as if spring arrived. Yes yes burned noses again, forgot suncream honey.

What a difference a day makes. It was all good today. A normal day at Palomaret, cloudbase not too high, got 1275 m, and max 3 m/s thermals. But not so normal as we haven't flewn for a bit.

We used as much time as we could playing, carving the air. We just needed a fix I guess. Some were flying for over 4 hours.

At the end of the day, we felt the wind picking up from east, and saw cloud development on the coast. Not so promising for tomorrow, could be strong, could be coastal soaring though.

Too windy, so bored a bit today

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv-tTIOlpKM

Shots fromy garden this afternoon. As you can all read the sky, you can tell it wasn't flyable. But is was nice and sheltered doing whatever you fancy, you had 20 degrees celsius to enjoy. There are worse places to be.

And yes our winter offer this time is, a free stay at Doyouwanna if you buy a new glider. You never knew you were gonna get a new Niviuk Artik, a Sky glider, an Advance maybe, of what about the new Nova glider. We do have all brands for sale. Hush.

Windy. Fuck it, I'm going home.

La cortina, the site near Benidorm nearly escaped ? Don't know yet, but what we know is that a huge bushfire burned down most of the northeastern part of Puig Campana. This is the huge mountain behind Benidorm, near our site. 14000 inhabitants had to be evacuated. Lets hope our site is not damaged.
This already fragile site, will definetely not improve its status, with the safari park nearby, which was partly caught in fire.
Due to the hostile weather, some high tension lines fell on the trees, and all caught fire. Damn.

You can check what happened yesterday with the weather in southern france and spain on your own charts if you like.

We had an explovise situation, which luckily rarely occurs on the mainland. Usually it occurs over the Atlantic Ocean.

First the Carribean warm air, which gave us such a warmth last friday, see blog.
Then the collision of this warm air, with the cold polar air, firing up the anti-clockwise movement of the air in our low pressure, moving in from the north. There were several low pressure centres that day. This brutal downfall of pressure, it dropped to 966 hPa (usually 984 hPa!), in a very short time.
When the cyclogenesis, which is the creating of a low pressure lets say, is that brutal or say that fast. In other words if the pressure drops more than 24 mB in 24 hours, then they'd like to call it a meteo bomb, or an explosive cyclone.
That type of cyclone is/was moved with the steering wind in the troposphere. Exactly, check the jetstream chart for this.

Amazing ? No, damn scary it was.

The last time this region had these windgusts were in 1978, 167 km per hor gusts, and of course from west, coming from over the Atlantic Ocean.

In 10 years down here, never have seen anything like this. Palmtrees horizontal, roofs blown away. Very sad, children up north got killed, their gymnasium roof collapsed. I hate to report disasters. But today was one day, I'll never forget. It was scary this nature force. It makes you think. I hope mister Gore, you have it all wrong.
100 k winds, hot in the sun, my thermometer marked 25 degrees on my wind-sheltered terrace. Extreme.

Warm air blowing strong today. 24 degrees max today, although the sun was not present. Strong gusts from the west, it felt more like sirocco winds. Although winds, air must have come from the atlantic ocean, see isobarmaps.

Mous (Algeria) and Jill (Luxemburgeois)

Katja (Belge) y Jill (Luxembourgois)

Sandra (Francaise) y Jean Jacques (belge flamand)

Such a nice gang. Always having fun, joking. A pleasure to have you guys. I am already laughing my tits off wih you guys, imagine it would be flyable, I'd probably piss my pants.

Bad luck for them, almost an entire week and no flying. Bad spell, we feel like we are in midwinter. Putain !

Situation this afternoon 12 UTC. Windy ? Yes.
With these isobars apart, you would think not. But we're talking Spain, closer to the equator. Meaning appr 35 procent more wind than in Belgium, England with same pressure difference.
So not flying today.

Sorry not to be able to put a paragliding foto on. I couldn't take one. I just could take one of our 'french connection' ready to go for a sail on the Med.
Blue sky, too much wind. All over Europe it seems to be windy, have to be patient. But ain't we as paragliders eh ?

Luckily it was warm and sunny. Otherwise it would have been worse for the visiting pilots from Belgium, Luxemburg and France. All speaking french.
Too windy today, and it looks like the next days it will be even windier.
But loads of things to do. Like horseback riding, motor riding, bicycle trips, hiking, even sailtrips. Whatever suits you, you're on holiday !

No chance to fly today. Out in Calpe where we had a day out in the sun. At Toix the winds were too strong for take off, 30 to 35 km per hour. Higher up at 800 meter above sea level, near Sierra Bernia we had no wind. We just were at the inversion line. It was nice and warm, 20 degrees, blue sky. But no flying.
Not exceptional for Toix this situation.

Toon, Collin, happy to fly at Palomaret today. Had to be done before they go home. Although it was a forward launch and a small flight. But we all got rewarded with two hours of Cabo flying.

Avoiding the remote controlled airplanes, and lots of visiting pilots from Murcia.

It was fun.

As you can tell on the top foto, winds were strong. You can tell by the windlines on the sea. By that time we all landed, and Elio got his Nova Schockwave out, 14 m2.

Nice to see him handle the thing, wingovering it like a toy.

Weather was tricky. Winds were supposed to pick up very strong in no time. We were warned.

Meanwhile inland Ismael and Pepe were flying their tits off, both had good flying in as well.

It's bullshit.

Spain, Costa Blanca paragliding. At its best. Costa Blanca is the coastal region between Valencia en southern Alicante lets say. Numerous sites for flying, inland and coastal sites, like this one, Toix near Calpe. Lovely.

We had a wait because it was too strong at starters. But hiked up the Sierra de Bernia, had several of cafés con leche.

Then hours of flying, all by ourselves.

I have to excuse me to the local pilots who called me for info. Edu, Pepe, Ismael, Fordy and others I didn't inform. I didn't think we were gonna fly today, after arriving at the site with gusting 40 km winds. I told all of my buddies, not to bother. Sorry, it all died off, at 4 pm. Tomorrow we see each other !

Here we go. Kicked off the winter season after a well deserved break in Morocco I would say.

Delivered. Hours of flying at Peña Rubia. Fantastic flying, cold at the fingers, but that couldn't spoil the fun.

And yes impressed with the take offs, in a 30 km gusty wind at our famous 'nature start' at Peña Rubia.

Ready to roll again, after our little trip to Africa.
Some foto's, it was wonderfull meeting wonderfull people down there.