Veintisiete

A great looking day. Flying tandem with Phyllis again, so who knows how long it far we will fly.  She seems to be able to fly as long as any and never gets motion sick. Cool. 

Boris and I rode the tail gate of Flaco's Toyota Land Cruiser (we call it a jeep). 

A capacity crowd today of 28 pilots. 

The cloudy mist flowed up the launch, obscuring the sun and cooling man, woman and beast as we hiked to the top. I'm getting in better shape, and the hike is getting easier. 

Just as the others arrived, the sky opened up and though cloudbase was low, it wasn't long before pilots were launching and staying up. 

10 year old Helen was with her father Oscar today. Oscar helps carry gear up the hill for $3,000 Cp per bag. ($1.50 USD). She reminded me of my youngest daughters at home who are 7 and 8 now.  She watched me carefully prepare my gear, asking questions and teaching me new words as well. The vultures here are called "cachinasos".

The day looked good, but base remained low, and climbs were weak in the beginning. Many people got established, some did not. 

Lars launched and stayed up a while but landed out front again. He is sure a great sport but I know he must be very frustrated. 

Dorian was trying out his previously injured hand (solo) today, finding that the X-ray showed no break. He got up and established and waited for me at the jumping off spot to the south. 

Jim on glide past Zarsal. Specked out!

Kirill flew with Rob Sporrer on tandem and Hugh launched right before me and stayed with me all the way to Roldonillo, Zarsal, La Vitoria and finally to Obando where we landed together. Personal best for Hugh. 

Phyllis and I gliding towards Obando. 

Dorian landed just past Roldanillo. Kirill couldn't take the cold of cloudbase since Rob Sporrer stayed so high for so long and they flew back to La Union. 

Hugh, Phyllis and our entourage waiting for a bus back. Three busses, and a taxi got us back to the hotel. 

Stuffed avocado to start dinner!

Brian, farmer and Rob, chowing down. 

Giant tamales wrapped in banana leaves.  The menu repeats weekly. Every day is a treat. 

Super busy down here and spirits are high. Publishing this a day or two late.  Whew!

Hasta pronto!

Martín

Vientiseis

The day looked ideal. I am flying Dorian tandem today. Blue flying monkey shirt and cloud shorts seemed appropriate. I am feeling great today. Better than usual. I have high hopes for my group.

Fruit and granola with yogurt. Mmmm. 

Julian, our concierge at Casa Blanca. Is going tandem today with Rob Sporrer. He seems relaxed and excited. 

 A really big group today. 28 people including guides. Perfect. 

Rob Sporrer adjusting Julian's harness. 

An inch worm measures my leg. 

In an effort to encourage early launching, Farmer set up quickly and launched early, making several low passed overhead. 

Dorian and I launched near the end, with two of my group landing before we could go and join them.  Rats. Hugh launched late with us too, and we climbed up to cloud together and went south to join the other pilots at the last ridge, affectionately known as the jumping off spot. We gaggled for what seemed like a long time, but climbs were slow and we had only occasional strong thermals. After a while we all topped off the thermal at base at 7200'.  Rob and his guys charged access to the middle of the valley and got a climb.  Some got up, and some landed. 

Dorian and I left after they marked the climb and got a few turns in before finding another climb, but not enough to get back up to cloudbase. Hugh joined us and Brian headed towards the road and some other pilots. Brian's group got up and away, while Hugh, Dorian and I landed next to Forrest, A pilot I know from Oregon. Forrest was enjoying the last day of his month long solo trip. It was good to see him again and wish him a safe trip home. 

A tiny praying mantis was on my wing as I packed In the shade of a huge tree with the others.

The field we landed in perked little and we gained a few hundred feet before finally landing among the charred cornstalks. So much for my new looking wing. Oh well, the carbon wipes off mostly. We hopped on a bus to Roldanillo and had juice and empanadas there. Perfect. Yummy. Satisfying. 

We caught the La Union bus with 5 minutes to spare. Sweet. It is 2:22 as we roll into town. Plenty of time to prep for my talk, do laundry, or just take a nap. The west wind is already here.  Early. 

Once in La Union, Dorian and I caught a Tuk Tuk back to Casa Blanca. Once there my plans changed. Today was a day of wing repair. 

John landed mostly in the soccer stadium but draped his wing on the wall, breaking an outside B-line and skinning 5 others, mostly C and D lines.  The outer protective sheath was damaged on the five skinned lines, but fortunately the core was intact. We carefully redistributed the sheath to cover the exposed cores and taped over the damaged part, preventing slippage and sun exposure to the cores. The broken line took some time to fix by hand sewing the two ends into loops like regular lines have. For the gap I sewed a similar diameter line as an extension to join the two ends. We measured against the opposite side's identical line to verify length under tension and sewed it into place, girth hitched on each end where they joined. Voilà. 

Another pilot we call Johno, landed near a field being irrigated and a guy on a tractor with a powerful water jet thought it would be fun to spray some local kids to cool them off from the midday sun from far away with the joint arc of water. It didn't occur to him that the glider was also in the path, dousing it with water and dirt, making a muddy wet mess of his wing.  Oops. 

We got johno's wing laid out on the downstairs tables where the west wind blows through and dries it out quickly in the shade and wind. The dirt dried too, falling off as the fabric rippled and flapped from the moving air. His harness was also wet but not his reserve. Whew!

Good old fashioned sewing. 

Rich, who went too deep (up the ridge behind the power lines) got low and it became too close for him to fly back out over the high tension, high voltage lines. He was on radio and was being coached but made a mistake and now had to side hill land just below launch to avoid crossing dangerously close to the lines. He did a good job and landed without incident. Some helpful locals ran to his aid, grabbing at his gear to help him up the steep slope, and letting him ride back to launch on the horse. Unfortunately they also accidently deployed his reserve.  Marge took care of the repack, while I tended to mending lines, and some also some loose stitching on the leading edge of yet another glider, mostly superficial but worth doing. I took a break from the sewing to give my presentation which started just a few minutes late, and ran 15 minutes into dinner. 

Dinner was some sort of breaded meat and curly pasta with green sauce. Delicious!

After dinner I went down, finished up and then retreated to prep my gear for tomorrow tandem with Phyllis (again). She hasn't really flown at all solo, though she does own a wing.  Lars, her husband flies and so this way they both can fly each day. 

The misshaps were many today but morale is high. I think everyone is excited for tomorrow. Rob, a new pilot has been flying really well. Today he flew almost 6 hours. Wow!

¡Hasta mañana!

I'm off to bed!

Martín

Vienticinco

Uvia. Rain. We all woke to a solid rain shower today and we ate breakfast as usual but delayed or departure by one hour. 

Brad sporting a Niviuk umbrella. I want!

I remained optimistic and told everyone that we were going up the hill, and would likely fly. 

The road was muddy but the drivers got us all to the top. 

The sky was filled with all kinds of clouds. It was really beautiful. It took a long wait in clouds and even a sprinkle on launch. 

The groomers seemed unaffected today. 

Farmer brought the flag used at the world championships as a patriotic wind indicator. It was really nice. 

Impromtu discussions broke out for the wait. 

Bradley with Christian waiting to launch. 

Rob Sporrer discussing the day. 

John and Marge chillin in the cloud. 

Eventually most everyone launched except John, who opted to pack up and ride the Cipri down. A good call. It never makes sense to ignore your gut. I was feeling great, and I launched last. 

Unfortunately I had an invisible knot in my upper left brake lines that included A and B lines as well. Ugh. I was able to hold my heading with considerable opposite weight shift and brake input, and quickly assessed whether or not I could make the LZ with such a mess in my lines above me. As I flew away towards the house thermal that was completely shaded, I found that I was going up in smooth steady lift nearly to cloud as I held a steady course until I had plenty of altitude to work the problem safely. I opted to fly all the way out to the Oscar's LZ so if I accidently made it worse, I would still be over a safe place to land. Eventually I pulled hard enough that the fragile upper brake line broke, releasing the other tangled lines. Sweet. Now I could go fly. Farmer, Brian, Jef, Rob and I scratched around in light lift near Oscar's until we all ended up landing there. We all would easily make it to the landing there so with the light lift we all tried to stay up as long as we could. 

Most everyone landed at Oscars and I had some local kids help me pack. They liked my hat. 

Back at the hotel I was able to replace my upper brake line that broke with an extra one (from my spare line set I brought down with me) and reassemble everything inside of 30 minutes. 

Hugh was the only one in my group to really seize the day and landed in Zarsal. Well done! 

It wasn't an easy or perfect day, but it had merit. I think it was hard for everyone to see the day change so dramatically for the better, albeit less than ideal. It certainly gave everyone more experience, and we all landed safely.   Well, almost. A hard landing injured the wrist of our Canadian pilot. 

Dorian at the radiology dept in La Union. 

No stranger to injury, it was more impressive to see the previously installed hardware in Dorian's hand than the alleged fracture that Christian supposed existed there. $35 USD and 30 minutes later, we were back at Casa Blanca.  With a DVD of the X-rays. Cool!

5:30 came quickly and Rob Sporrer gave an excellent talk on risk management. 

Tomorrow I give my talk, and it will likely encompass elements of hydration and inflight urination, but will focus more on the talk I gave last year, which had more to do with planning, preparation, goal setting, in addition to having a positive can-do attitude. The psychology of paragliding is really a powerful aspect that I think many don't give enough attention to. Henry Ford once said:

"If you think you can or cannot achieve something, in either case you are probably right."

Our groups have had great energy and super attitudes this far, but it is easy to let our inner dialogue derail our potential for success. I hope I can give everyone permission to be patient and understanding with themselves and empower all of them to take charge of how they think and feel. 

I had a great chat with my family late last night thanks to FaceTime on my iPhone (audio only) and the weak WIFI here at the hotel.  It was really great to hear everyone's voices. I miss everyone and look forward to being home in a week and a half. In the mean time, they seem to be doing really well, and I am having the time of my life. 

Missing you all,

Martín

Veintiquatro

Average 6:00 am sky. Epic day ahead. 

Today I flew tandem with Christian, a trauma specialist who directs emergency surgery at two different hospitals. We had an interesting discussion on the way up the hill today. Trauma, while urgent and serious, often is very interesting and there are usually lots of stories to be told. He had lots. 

5 people opted to hike up today with Redbull athlete Dawn, but even with extra seats folks still rode atop the Cipri. 

I paced myself with the heavy tandem wing only to see a local guy carrying two tandems at the same time. Dang!

There was no north wind today and everyone who wanted to, got up fairly easily and were able to hang out at cloudbase to meet up with the rest if thier groups. Climbs were gentle at first, but soon got stronger as the day heated up. 

Rob Milley hit some strong turbulence over the house thermal, lost control of his wing and threw his reserve parachute. It opened quickly and he landed on the steep side of the house thermal hill with no injury whatsoever. We dispatched some locals to help him get back and he was able to ride a horse back to the vehicles, get a ride down and eventually repack his reserve parachute at the hotel later that day. 

I gifted Rob some limes, Vodka and a toy parachute for his quick and decisive thinking today. Bravo!

Cristian and I had a great flight. (3:20). We flew nearly the whole "box" but opted to land short of Roldanillo just to be safe.

Rob Sporrer and Hugh over Zarsal. 

We got low, really low, once but for a low save and added another hour or more to our flight. Yesss!

Oh what a great sky we had today. 

The west wind came through just as the last pilots landed. Perfect. 

Rob Sporrer landed next on his tandem with Hugh, and we posed to celebrate. 

Brian and Phyllis landeding.     

Rob G., who was a newer pilot in Brian's group landed with us again. He is having incredible flights each day. Wow!

We were picked up by Cipri and in no time were eating roasted chicken and drinking smoothies. Everyone down safe. 

Ahhhh. Pineapple mango for me today. 

Dinner was was pork loins, served at 7 pm after Brian finished his talk that began at 5:30. After eating and reviewing he day with my group, I retreated to my room to rest and blog a bit. 

Tonight I will try to chat with my family via FaceTime if all goes well. IPhones are great, but the wifi at the hotel limits the potential at times. Fingers crossed. 

Buenos noches,

Martín