Thursday, April 28, 2011

Pounders: Dry Run

It was almost a year ago that I had my first XC to Pounders Beach, and that day was not a good one in my history. I yelled down to Mad Dog, saying "I am going to land on you," and instead, I splashed into the surf, losing my GPS, vario, radio and camera. Good thing my mentor, Ike, filmed the whole thing. Posted here again for your enjoyment.



Well, I arrived around 4pm today, kinda late, but summer is coming, and days are longer. I love summer! I scrambled up East Launch to find McStalker getting ready to take off and Matt close on my heels. The King was doing his thing, buzzing the launch, provoking monkeys to take flight.

Alex was chirping about going downrange somewhere, but my plan was just stay local and play around with the Synergy4 to get more used to it. But when I opened my bag I realized I had the Sport4. Oh well, I guess I was going somewhere. My first flight with the King since his return, so I had to obey.

It was an easy day to get to 2,200 and I burned a left towards Punaluu ridge.
Matt flew over to join us, and then we made the next jump to Hauula Ridge. I could see Duck & Ginger in their driveway as Duck radioed up that he would retrieve. Thanks again, Duck.

I had plenty of altitude and arrived at Pounders with 1,200 feet, and headed way out over the water. I could have gone further down, as I have in past flights, but I needed to get this LZ memory erased. Larry Mac was on the beach, and radioed up the wind direction and strength, which matched my figuring.

I landed at the beach right next to the trail to walk up to the grass. This was my second landing at Pounders. Well, the first one actually on the beach. I was dry, yaaaah! Now there is a tree in Pearl City that I still need to make it past, but that will have to wait a while.

Alex made it down to Hukilau Beach and Matt got his first XC to Hauula Beach Park, Duck came and got all of us with refreshments. Duck had some stout beers which were a little dark for me and I was trying to lay off so I did not end up on Reaper's couch again. Matt ruined that good thought by jumping in the truck with a rack of Sierras, and I just couldn't pass that up. So my trip was not totally dry.

Thanks again to Alex for leading the charge, and to Duck for his never-ending graciousness driving the para-taxi.

Summer is kinda here, So It's Time to Fly Get Your Gear and Go!!!

3 comments:

allanc said...

Thom, that video was great. I was in a bad mood and it cheered me right up. Been there, done that.

Thom said...

Thanks Alex for the edits and getting that flic to post I tried.

Gotta go to Blog school one of these days.

Matt said...

Nice one Thom! I did enjoy turning down a homeless guy who asked me for a couple bucks, and then running across the street to buy overpriced beer : ) Glad you enjoyed!