The Montsec (Àger) ridge from the south
Foto: Mark Segal

This week we will mainly be practicing cross wind take-offs!

We haven't been rewarded with the best weather this week - the strong north wind at the coast translated to East here in Àger. But even so we have amazed the locals by flying every day so far!
Tuesday started with sunshine and light winds, rewarding the guys with nice smiley flights in smooth air but not much going up! Bill's smile after flying the AirDesign Vita lasted all day :)
After some hovering and serious scratching in small, weak, thermals from a surprisingly mellow Hells Kitchen we reconvened at Franceses take-off. But, whilst it was launchable/flyable it wasn't much fun once out of the thermals at Tablones and was positively exciting in the valley as thermals and strong east wind mixed and bounced us around the sky. Dirk and I only just made it back to Camping in the cross-wind. Thomas decided to enjoy nature by landing in the almond groves and Mark ran bravely for
'Tomás the balloon' joined us for the day to celebrate his 30year aniversary of first flying in Àger (on a delta) and enjoyed his first PG flight here in 20 years!
The evening saw Mark 'ballooning' in the strengthening and gusty wind causing the rest of us to run bravely away down to the bar!

Evening soaring
Foto: Mark Segal

Yesterday, the easterley continued here so the plan was to fly Organyá if possible. .. though it was by no means a certainty. After a site-seeing journey through Boixols following the join-the-dots cross-country route from Àger to Organyá we arrived to find light wind (very spooky!!) on launch but the building wave-bars over the Pyrenees was enough to focus the mind that conditions might not be all they seemed to be!
The Organyá launch is challenging when the wind is coming up the face but the 90degree crosswind from the WEST made it a interesting for us all - the local guys sitting it out in the landing field were treated to a display of ground-based 'acro' ;)
We all enjoyed a dynamic/thermic flight as the day started to heat ... Ian, once again managed to climb out where no-one previously had found a sniff of a thermal (I think he had Tomás fill the glider with helium!) and floated around the valley as the day strengthened. We were all waiting for the inevitable "I dunnae ken how tae git doon..." as the Muntanya Magicá did its stuff!!
Eventually, he managed to find enough sink to land and decided that enough was enough. The Berlin boys and Mark went back up for a flight and all landed wishing they had not bothered again. Organyá is a very special place in that we can fly when its not flyable anywhere else ... but that in itself kind of tells you something!
Probably the only pilots in the air in Catalunya were the Brits, Czechs and Germans ...with the Catalans all sat watching!

Today, the Low has settled over us so the guys are out and about playing in the lakes, gorges and mountains ... Tomorrow is another day!