Sunday, June 28, 2009

In Absentia

Since our most prolific contributor, and undisputed King of Kahana, is off to the mainland at Rat Race 2009, I'll do my small part to push the Mad Dog story down the page.

Early in the morning yesterday I took a ride up over H3, since the wind sensors looked promising for flying, as I came out the tunnel the situation looked a litte different with some light rain falling, so opted to wait a couple hours for the rain to dry out.

Ginny and I did a nice hike through the Koko Crater botanical garden, and were treated by a spectacular show of bloomimg cactus plants. As we finished our hike Jeff Mc called to report he was passing Kualoa Ranch and that it looked good out toward Kahana. So off we went.

Jeff met up with Rich and they hiked up, Myself, & Ginny rounded out the early shift. We all got out of low launch with Rich up first, then Jeff, Me and Ginny. As Rich, Jeff and I were cruising up in the back we could hear Fireman Dave, Jetflap Jeff and Nick were over flying Makapu'u.

Ginny made a foray over to the north ridge a little early and did her best to eek it back up on the normal ridge, but ended up having to go in and land. Jeff Mc and I made a few feeble attempts at crossing the bay, with Jeff being the more adventurous of us he pushed it a little low over Crouching Lion and had to bail out to the beach on the return trip from that valiant attempt.

I landed shortly after that to get some lunch, followed by Rich who had a nice two hour flight. BeeMan Mark was down there kiting - he really is enthusiastic about it which is great to see. Jared showed up just after we landed and as he hiked up Jeff Mc, Larry and myself went off to get lunch. JD and Lee Ann showed up soon too.

While we were out to lunch Jared entertained everyone on the ground with numerous stalls, spirals, frontals, and perhaps an unintended maneuver. After lunch JD, Larry, Lee Ann (sans gear) and I hiked up the north ridge since the wind direction had changed, and we didn't want Jared to feel lonely up there showboating. JD did a great job on his first launch out of there.

Soon enough Side Hill Thom drove in but didn't stop at the LZ to chat with anyone, he was in dire need of a dose of Skyalis. Since all the cars were still parked by normal launch he hiked up there even though myself and Larry were over on north side. I got off nicely with some help from Lee Ann and Larry to keep my lines from grabbing the brush. Thom did an excellent job of pulling it off from the high launch on the normal ridge and was able to buzz straight over Larry's head as he was setting up, as Thom went up in the sky his urge was quenched. Larry got airborn on his second launch try. We all had a pleasant late afternoon ride.

Nice day out there once again with good food, beverages, friends and flying.

2 comments:

nightshift said...

Ginny, you obviously didn't eek loud enough to stay up!

Alex said...

Jim, great story and pictures! Thanks for keeping the fires burning on the blog while I'm gone. I'm thinking about all you guys. Like how you should be here. Start saving your cash and vacation time for next year!