After waiting all afternoon for wind, it finally turned on at the last hour before dark, and I followed Jayson and the Canadians up for a nice north session at Kahana and a late bay crossing as the sun disappeared and the lights started to come on.Canadians Charlie and Lee got stinking high over Sacred Falls and flew to Pounders in the morning while I was trying to get work done. It's hard to get work done when you're running to different windows of your house, peering up at the sky and watching your visiting buddies specked out on your favorite little XC milk run, with the radio tuned in to their chatter. At one point I heard someone say "I'm crossing the island now..." and I ran to the window to see who was crazy enough to jump over the back of Sacred Falls - but it turns out they just meant they were heading downrange to Pounders. Whew.
The forecast said we would get some nice moderate northeasterlies today, so I had high hopes for a bay crossing. But when I got there just after noon, it was barely working, super light and north, and I thermaled hard for quite a while but could never break 1,600 feet. I toplanded and waited on launch for a long time with Maui Doug, Jayson and Larry as it got lighter and lighter. We finally all sledded down for a late lunch at Bobo's and some cold refreshments.
Maui Doug went to Makapuu only to find it blown out there! 15+ mph cycles on Crazies and huge cats paws spinning onto the LZ. After I heard that, I knew it would soon be working for us - even though I still didn't feel much of a breeze at Bobo's. Lots of low clouds were coming in, from a super north direction, and as we parked and started up north launch we finally began to feel some wind building. The sensor was showing 9 mph at 8 degrees. The only problem was that we started launching around 5:30 with only a half hour of light left!
Canadians Mark, Jonny and Hans had great sunset flights, while I led Jayson across the bay for a twilight cruise over his condo, the first time he's been over there. Actually I headed over long before he finished helping his buddies get off, but he finally made it up and across just as I was coming back around to head in for a landing. By that time it was super dark and all the street lights were on. Jayson came back and landed shortly after that, and I scrambled home late for dinner.
What a fun day - I can't believe it really turned on like that at the end.
2 comments:
Alex all these stories have to be killing JeffMc, maybe you should hold off till he gets back.....nah. Congrats an yet another bay cross. Glad to hear Mark got a flight too. I hope to get a flight with him before he goes back to Canada.
Sidehill
Yeah, great to fly over my new pad Alex. Thanks for the encouragement.
Bummer it was getting dark but it was so smooth and lifty over there that I had to push on to Kaaawa Valley to take in the views.
Full bar all the way back to Kahana, and then spiraling way out over the bay under the smiling sliver of a moon capped the evening flight perfectly :)
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