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Day 418 - Lijar - Spain | |
| 25 05 2017 | ||
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Well, here I am back in Algodonales again, this visit is to be a special one for me as I have brought June with me, June (for anyone that reads this) is the mother of my good lady - in the UK, affectionately known as 'The Mother In-law'. This may sound a bit weird at first, but June really wanted to check out Algodonales, and the Paragliding scene here, as well as experiencing Romeria, so a Paragliding, Algodonales, Andalucia sightseeing tour begins today.This was to be my first Tandem flying experience in Spain also, with June as my passenger, well, if you want to know what Paragliding is about, you need to fly right?I won't mention June's age out of politeness but I will say that everybody who knows her is amazed at how young she looks and behaves for her years - including me, even moreso after this long weekend. So, today was the usual drill, Breakfast in Algodonales, then into the Van and up to Take Off. SW (Levante) Take Off was not working so we went round to the SE Take Off and waited a while, I ended up doing a Solo flight to get rid of my 1st flight nerves. As it turned out, the air was quite turbulent with strong small thermals, I am glad I was not on the Tandem glider for this flight, it was not the smoothest, I Flew for around one hour before landing fine in the SE landing field.Back up the mountain it was Tandem time, I briefed June and got her dressed and into the Harness. For this trip I had attached an airbag to the bottom, this was to make for a softer landing should we not be able to run the landing off, and I did not want to take any risks at all with June when landing.I prepared the glider and hooked myself in, connected to June and we were ready. I had Gerhard and Manuel to assist me in launching (again to reduce any risk to an absolute minimum). All set to go...I waited for the wind to be perfect, then launched, it went fine, we had to run a little but not too much and we were airborne. As soon as we were away from the mountain June got into the harness comfortably, then so did I. We flew by the ridge but the thermal activity was low, this meant I could not climb out so we headed along the ridge towards the North.Being quite nervous on the first flight I decided to head out towards landing whilst on the lookout for thermals. I let June fly the glider for a few minutes so she could feel what it was like, and she steered the glider to the left and to the right whilst making sure we had enough height at all times to get to the landing area safely (I was over cautious and we arrived quite high) so we had plenty of time to set up for landing.The landing was my biggest concern, I had been worrying about this for a long time on and off (weeks) as Tandem landings can be fast, can be awkward, plus I had not landed a Tandem in this landing field before, I was very nervous about getting the glider down within the confines of the field, as I set up to land I decided to land in the next (larger) field that would give me more time to sort any problems out. As it turned out, I set up fine for landing, and coped with a small pocket of sinking air before landing exactly when I needed to, just before landing June lifted her legs as pre agrees and we slid in on the harnesses, nice and smooth as I had flared the glider big time with two wraps. After we had stopped, I checked and June was fine - relief was not the word, I was so pleased, I was very concerned about this going wrong and it went okay so I was so happy/relieved/well... everything was good! I will point out here that June was advised to wear a neck brace to even drive a car due to a neck problem, hence my weeks of worry, and now such relief that you will not believe it, we had discussed this beforehand and the decision to fly was made by both of us knowing the risks so this landing was probably one of the most nerve racking I have ever made... seriously, I was SO happy, I wanted to get the post landing selfie and was shaking so much, but all was good, June informed me the landing was lovely and smooth with no problems at all. Off to the legendary Landing Bar run by Pepe for probably one of the most desired/wanted/needed landing beers of my life. No in flight photos or video I am afraid, I did not want to compromise anything during this flight, there are some photos directly after landing and at Pepe's Landing Bar, also a GPS track log and Google Earth KML file. The evening was dominated by a very kind invite to join Carlos for a real and Paragliding family BBQ at one of the Ganterfly apartments with many friends and a classic Ganterfly BBQ with a lot of meat consumed. A few beers until the early hours with June in Bar Fly (La Poza) to celebrate a great success today...
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