Friday, March 07, 2008

Let's go another round

Just a short article before I'm off to San Diego for a week of business... Unfortunately, I won't have time to fly there, so I had to squeeze in some air time today at Makapuu. Sub Steve and I hiked up to Cactus. The wind on the LZ seemed very light and quite East. We made it up to the top and conditions looked good. Knowing Cactus' fickle moods we tried to get set up as swiftly as feasible.

As I finished laying out, Canadian visitors Mike, Gordon, Meg, and Ryan (non flyer) hiked up and Mike introduced himself. We didn't talk long since the wind was picking up already. I got out, followed by Steve and Mike. Ryan, Gordon and Meg opted to hike down - the wind had picked up considerably from their reports. On the way down, Meg stopped by both Manic's and Crazy Man's for a look-see. She then hiked up Tomato Juice and got a short flight from there to land over by the heiau (now that's one motivated woman).

Gordon and Ryan got in some quality beach time. Steve, Mike and I flew around for a couple of hours. Jetflap Jeff and Russell made their appearance and both got out of Cactus. As we were all landing Jetflap went over toward Koko Crater, followed by Russell a while later.

Seeing them take off, the Canadian entourage was ready for round two. Ian and his wife Marissa from Florida also dropped in and decided to hike up and give it a try in tandem. I hiked up with everyone and helped a few people off, Ryan hiked up again too and went off hiking the ridge to get some pictures and explore the scenery.

I then went on down, where I met Arizona Chandler and Jetflap by Manic's. Chanlder hiked up to Cactus and flew from there too. Finally, I went on back to the LZ to consume a couple of beverages with Ryan.

Great to see you all out there!

3 comments:

JeffMc said...

Nice summary Jim - sounds like a pretty active day, especially considering it was a work day. Wish I could have made it out. Nice pics too!

Possible correction: I believe Ian and Marissa are from San Francisco. At least that's what I remember. In any case, I think they have the Hawaii bug and are here kinda "scoping out" the place between the flying :)

-Jeff

Alex said...

Jim, you've really got the hang of these blog posts. Bravo! And those pictures are very pretty! Are you doing any post-processing? Or maybe at the time you were flying the air was just that clear and the lighting was just that dramatic. Thanks for taking care of our visitors and writing up the day's flights. I've got another week left on my business trip here and then I'll probably be bringing this cold wet DC weather back to Hawaii with me. See you in a week!

Waianae Jim said...

Jeff, you may be right about Ian & Marissa. Ian is from FL, but has been out in CA for about a year now. I guess I put FL because his cell number still has the FL area code, and he said he's from the Melbourne area where my Mom lives.
Alex, no special processing to my pics, the camera is in full auto mode. I've just started being more selective about what pictures I put up. So out of ten or so I took I only posted four.
I also forgot to put Frank in the list of flyers. He and I bypassed each other when I hiked down from Cactus along the fence, he was hiking up the road.