Small Missions

At least a dozen happy monkeys flew Makapuu today, to celebrate the departure of the sulfuric Kona breezes and the impending return of the trade winds. The flow started out nice and light and straight onshore, although low clouds dashed our hopes for big downrange missions. So we enjoyed some nice small valley missions to Puu O Kona, Greenwalls, Olomana, and that special place just a hair short of Lanikai.

Early numbers looked great for Dillingham, and I was tempted to head that way. I was also confident that the sea breeze or building trades would make Kahana work, despite the blipmap’s pessimistic dark blue bubble. But when Jorge called to invite me for a mission at Makapuu, I couldn’t refuse. Plus by that time I could see that Dillingham was getting too strong and Kahana was not turning on. So much for second guessing the blip.

It was fun flying with Jorge, and watching his crazy valley lines. I stuck to the ridges and it didn’t pay off as well for me. While Jorge specked out between clouds and blazed multiple sorties toward Lanikai, I was struggling to connect with anything solid in front of Olomana. Eventually Jorge caught a boomer and disappeared back toward Puu O Kona. I tried to find something comparable, but the clouds were getting lower and I was running out of time and patience.

Finally I just blazed over the back toward Green Walls, a lot lower than I would have liked. Jorge later said he saw me down there and couldn’t believe I was taking that low a line. Well Jorge, sometimes you just got to take a low line. I arrived with maybe 1,400 feet at the back and squeaked my way up, as Jorge came over to join me from Puu O Kona. We frolicked in the wispies at green walls before heading back to Makapuu, where we found more and more monkeys launching into the now stronger conditions.

Great to see everyone out there: Don, Kaaawa Larry, Jorge, Doug, Fedex Dick, Sebastian, Tom Ekman, Allegra, James, new student Margot, Frank, Tommy, and anyone else I’m forgetting.