Well, you know ...

Sunny, pretty hot, wind on the hill, good company, no stress, summer feeling, all day flying, wish I stayed in bed.

Cloudy day

Cloudy today, and they didn't burn off, as promised.

I remember when I got here 13 years ago now, that I was surprised local pilots were flying under those big black clouds.

But soon I found out, these bbc's were not so mean. They were more clouds coming in from the sea, easterlies coming in. Moist.

Under these black clouds it was smooth gliding from one end of the mountain to the other end.

All day, all night.

First flight after three months of injury

Today I flew for the first time after my motorbike accident in beginning of july. I broke my collar bone three months ago. After a painfull recovery for three months, I finally have the 'flexibility' and the 'strength' to fly again. Not long, I only flew 15 minutes then I had to go land.

Felt great though.

By this I have to thank all the help I got from the local pilots, the local schools, the local professional tandem pilots for helping me out. Without them my business would have been stuck. But the service of doyouwanna was guaranteed by pilots like Pepe, Café and the parahawk team of Scott Mason who was here till mid august, and many others.

I owe you big time.

So we all flew today at Cabo de Santa Pola. A site which is victim of its success the last couple of years. Sometimes you wished we kept it quiet. Too many visiting pilots jeopardize the site. Sorry to say. Yesterday two bad accidents by visiting pilots, warned and asked by the locals (I wasn't there ...) not to fly. Maybe we as local pilots should stand more firm to protect our site, despite the swearing and the insults we get from it. I say no more.

At some point, us, locals will not have a lot of weapons any more to defend our precious home site.

Lets hope the two pilots will recover soon. Maybe they could help out by telling others not to come down and do things on their own, but fly with the schools, or guided. Before it is too late.

Roquebrune and other sites are closed, let it not happen to our precious Cabo de Santa Pola, please.

Palomaret

Did it again. We had some safe flying with this strong norhteaserly. Clouds were blocking the strong winds. So we could easily get to the clouds, 1500 masl, which is a 700 m climb, before getting to El Cid or Maigmo.
Landings were the most critical and technical today as you have to land on both official landing fields with cross winds.
Rolf, Ronny, Sven, Leonard and Tom, thanks flying with us. Hope to see you again, mean it.

Hard work but rewarded

Early morning at cliffs Santa Pola. Sea strong at first, then nothing. Didn't feel like waiting, for good times bad times. So I asked my buddies if they wanted to go walkabout and find a site inland.
Luckily all said yes. So off we went for Reconco, where at first the gusts were nicely on the hill, pinetrees smelling as if slowly burned, summer was around kicking off those valley thermals.
But we were expecting northeasterly winds. So bits later we had to move on to San Antonio, winds off, too east and weak.
Rewarded though later when all of the group made little XC's upwind, flew into the clouds, eared it down etc... . Playground for the big boys.

Leanord with his shiny Apco.

Morning flights in the sun.

And Ronny once again the most far, landing on the roofs of Agost ???

Ronny, Sven, Rolf and Leonard, no stress just bring us to the right place !

Just got a call from Pepe, he flew a 30 km out and return at Palomaret, last site we visited today.

2500 m cloudbase ain't bad in october

Is that a Cayenne3 ?

Ronny, landing out near Pinoso.

Take off

That was what Tom Kane got today, over Sierra del Carche.

Another hot hot day, in Alicante, direction Murcia where we visited Sierra del Carche with its 1400 m ASL take off.

As you can see on the foto's, a bit of a spanish take off, but that makes it all more interesting.

A beautiful day spent.

Dia de Hispanidad - Fiesta del Pilar

All spanish, latin countries in the world had a day off today. And you could tell, lots of families enjoying the summer days on the hills. Loving the paragliding scene, well we think they were ... .

Everywhere families with kids picknicking, grandma's and granddad being pampered, noisy at the bars as spanish can be.

If you look at the foto it gives you an idea how fantastic it is to live in this part of Europe, southern Spain. For many reasons, especially comparing it to my previous country up north, where the most erotic view you can get in october, is probably a tear in a nun's stocking.

So, lovely ladies on take off as well today, dressed as if summer still has to kick off.

Where we all were circling with the vultures today. Don't know where they came from, but today after years of not seeing them on this site they were back. They were flying close and together with the gliders, or the gliders with them of course.

Cloudbase at 1400 m ASL.

Just had a call from Pepe, he flew more inland in Caudete and got a 3000 m cloudbase. Wish we would have been there, tomorrow is our day to go more inland, lets see.

Good vibrations

We've been flying our tits off last couple of weeks. Lots of visitors, from all over Europe.
Good guys, good vibes, good friends, no hassles. I hope you enjoyed it all and I hope we meet again. Un abrazo.

I

Webcam at landing Toix

Installed, from now on all can view the landing by webcam installed in Calpe.
To see if there is interest, there will be a counter of how many viewers we have.
IP addresses will be listed, so we can ask frequent watchers what can be improved.

Morro de Toix

Over 30 degrees celsius, high pressure, feeling suffocated by the sun, what a summer we have. Incredible.
No sense to go inland with this thick inversion, so we went for sea soaring near Calpe. Morro de Toix.
That's where I met my old friend Leslie, who's father used to play the clarinet after landing. For old times' sake.
Hope all goes well for you Leslie, and all the shit that happened makes you lots stronger. Nice to have you around again.

Swedish and belgians thats' what we had as guests friends today. All excited to fly the coastal sites, the precious soaring site over Calpe.

Best choice of the day.

High noon

1 pm airborne, 6 pm down, long hours in the air. Cloudbase at Reconco 1800 ASL, good enough to boat around the valley, soar the castle of Castalla and peep over to Biar and valleys beyond.
Tone again was skygod, together with all that left us today and leave us early morning tomorrow. Hope you all had a good time.
I know some of you topped up more than 16 hours now in a week, it doesn't get much better. Adios.

Obsessed by flying

Obsessed by flying, I think they are. Till last minute not missing a minute all day, Thierry Moreau's students were flying.

Thierry Moreau runs the well known Belgian paragliding school Fou d'Ailes. Once again he is visiting the Alicante region and let his pilots top up 15 hours of airtime in a week, easy.

Somebody in a tree ... ?¿?

West east and south

What should we do. Strong easterly winds at the coast by midday, and western winds more inland.

Waiting for some valley breeze and hope for a site flyable not too far inland.

We were lucky the day turned out so good. Bits were bumpy, bits were strong, but luckily all calmed down and many many visiting pilots had a splendid day.

Hey you all, see you again, I hope you had a great time.

Setting sun before falling stars

Tonight falling stars at 9.30, thousands of wishes. Look northwest.

Thanks Vladimir for the info, you know I like this stuff.

Inserted a foto driving home, see you tomorrow sun.

Freaky kind a weather but flying

Our dutch friends did what they love the most, chatting and flying later on. A bit difficult with a hard and strong westerly up high and a strong easterly down below. But we managed to fly in all safety.

Cabo de Santa Pola

Cabo today I think for everyone who was in a radius of 80 km. Too many pilots on the same hill today. About 45 gliders were counted, more than on any summer day.

Untill windlines were showing up and then only Alex and Manolo had the whole site for themselves with their speedgliders.

Russians on the sites

Who said? If you have enemies it means you have an opinion. I don't remember who's quote it is, but I agree.

Well here we go. Amongst my best friends I have russians, absolutely. But again and again I meet russians on our hills who cannot care less about our sites, about our habits, rules, agreements.

Maybe it comes with their life lived before, to elbow their way in to get a job, to get food, bread and an orange.

If you ask them politely to prepare behind take off area not to bother the other pilots, they look at you as if you are from another planet, as if you are not the local, but they are.

Happens again and again.

And if you ask them buying the 5 euros helmet sticker to allow them to fly on our sites, they seem absent. No respect at all.

You can act and say bloody russians, and tell them we didn't invite them to be on our hills, but that would be too rude. Best thing is to ignore and let them do their thing.

I know but I am not sure !

Ok back to the flying, 1850 ASL Palomaret dutch pilot Stefan showed all how to fly it. Lovely gorgeous day inland today. Lots of foreign guests, all that smily, helmets almost fell off their head.

On foto the 77 year old Ernst, who has been coming here for years and still flies his Advance of course.

Also to make it even ... foto of one of my best friends, Dimitri from Russia, a super guy who flies his Aereos Russian glider.

Windmill farm

Frans over the moon !

Caudete with its windmills, always impressive arriving at the site. Pilots always need a little push to get going.

XC skies gave us a 1800 m cloudbase, well it was more, we got to 2100 m ASL. Good enough for Tone and Pepe to go XC. Both landed at Almansa.

The whole group had a fab time, flying over the windmills, some triangular flights for over 30 k, hours and hours.

big big round of applause

happening - take off

Moni und Klaus, no words

Mon under her Vibe

Stefan

Not known couple who where cuddling and a hugging watching the paragliders, looked like love.

Brandnew brand Adrenaline, from Yecla Spain. Soon on the market , being tested by us and local pilots.

A foto showing how we can filter current not current pilots. A not very natural position, just before launch. We see it all the time...

He looks like prince Carnaval, and maybe he is, but he is one of the nicest Belgian pilots you'll ever meet. Frans !!

Before there were a couple of paragliding magazines, now a thousand paragliders pilots are blogging. Me myself and I included now, for over more than six years.Sometimes you wonder why you still do it. Therapy ? Feeling important - having to share ? Frustration as it is your only outlet ¿¿?¿

Let the pictures tell the story ,and then you forgive me using up your time reading my blog once in a while.

Bingo

Back to normal southern winds in the afternoon. All inland, cloudbase at 1650 not reached by all of us. But still very good and amusing flights till late or better early evening.

A better day in october still to come ? It'll be difficult.

Meanwhile fiestas in my village, amongs the tourists, some spanish cultural stuff.

A hot and lazy sunday afternoon with a flight as dessert

Nobody thought of flying after this windy bits from early morning. But surprise surprise at 6 pm some of it died off and off we were flying.
Not all of us, as winds were sharp for some.
Be carefull with the spanish grass, not so smooth as at home. . .