In front of 2ª Maria, Berga.  Foto: Judith Mole

The paragliding world is a very small world! On Sunday I was contacted by a couple of visiting pilots from the US and we made tentative arramgements to fly together when the tramuntana stopped blowing.
Yesterday was the day so we met up in Berga along with Geoff and Judith.
When they first spoke to me, in Spanish, there was something familiar about their accent and it turned out that they are Colombian and we know all the same friends! So far from meeting a couple of strangers we spent the whole day catching up on what our mutual friends have been up to since we last saw them all in January.
The conditions were really light when I launched - Geoff was determined that I was going to be the sacrifice ;-) - so staying up was a challenge both because there was no lift at all anywhere away from the cliff but also a challenge to prove I could defy gravity in these conditions even for a little while! By just tucking a wing tip over the trees and rocks I managed to maintain for a few beats even managing to get a couple of 360's in with the vultures (who also wimped out and went to sit on a tree!).Then it all went oh so sinky and looked like it was all over. BUT away from sight of the 2ª Maria take-off I found a tiny bubble of lift that gradually took me back above the plateau after lots of grovelling and tree-kicking. Feeling mightly pleased with myself I headed back to launch to show the others that I was still airbourne and lost all the height it had taken 20 minutes to get :( Sometimes I am soooooo dumb!
The landing became inevitable after that... but I did surprise myself my getting back to Espais and avoiding the dreaded short-bomb-out at the motorcross track and the walk back.