...and so ends my 1st visit to La Isla Bonita, La Palma island in the Canarias. Its a strange place of black rocks, black sand, ancient volcanos, bananas, bananas, bananas and while we were there just slightly too much weather!
Arriving last Thursday, Javi the organiser of the Desafio announced that it had been flyable every day for 2 months, sounds great..we thought! The first practice day was amazing with heights of 2800m reached, views of the entire island, blue skies, fluffy clouds - we felt we could fly anywhere.
But true to form, if there is one thing that can break the weather its a paragliding competition and this one was no exception. The flying area is protected from the strong winds so that even with the 32knot wind forcasts we were able to fly circuits in a small area. Unfortunately as the days passed the wind got stronger and the protected area smaller until we were literally rained out of the sky.
Flying a wet glider is not much fun, but to not be able to see through your sunglasses, fly a wet glider and try to land along with 80 other pilots on a small beach can be a lot of FUN of an intense kind!
The big issue for me the first few flights was the lack of landing places and the proximity of the sea at all times. At times it felt like we were trying to fly through a letterbox, restricted by the lava fields of the plateau and the low cloud base, at other times it felt that the letterbox had closed with me inside it as we were sucked up into the cloud. The lack of landings was intimidating but after a few beach landings on the 'spot' I was feeling that i could put the glider down anywhere.. a good thing as after 1 stopped task i had to land in the lava fields :-( It was more of an arrival than a landing in a small patch of black sand high on the mountain! I was astonished to see that i had been spotted by the rescue team as a Fiat panda 4x4 came bouncing over the lava ito a place no vehicle should have been able to reach!
Anyway it all finished up with a crazy party and a 4am ferry to Tenerife where the final round of Liga Nacional starts tomorrow.
I was interviewed a few times by Spanish TV about the event and always it was the same question that left me stumbling for an answer.. "Will you come back to La Palma?"
Hmmmm.... its a difficult question when you look at the flying, the tasks, the weather we experienced but I have to say that for some strange reason I leave La Palma knowing that I will be back. Its the combination of everything that made it a holiday as well as a flying experience. Excellent organisation, landing on the beach, sitting on the avenida drinking beer with friends, living in a hotel just 20m from that beach and being lulled to sleep by the waves crashing on the rocks.. its just too good to miss out on. The people are what make every trip into an experience: catching up with old friends, finding new friends, fun, flying, sun, sea, sand....& mojitos! Javi, Susan you probably won't believe this but PLEASE can I come back next time?!
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