Hi All (all two??)
I have been offline for a bit, busy getting my arse over here and getting installed. Flight went well in spite of two gliders and umpteen t-shirts for the team, and in the end I just got in a cab at the airport (happened to be a Suburban, full-size SUV) and curled up on the back seat while the friendly driver drove me down to Valle – not the safety-conscious thing to do but he seemed like a trustworthy feller and so he was in the end.
Today was my first thermalling day since July last year, but I had prepared myself well by taking a new prototype paraglider and a new harness. I got the harness on all wrong, so wasn’t super comfortable (note to self: when Kurt says a harness is complex and you need the manual then he means it) but otherwise all worked remarkably well and the glider seemed super friendly and does go well.
Unfortunately Ronny isn’t so happy with his proto, he claims he’s losing on glides when there’s some vertical movement, and he’s now at a stage where he wants to fly his old wing tomorrow. This is super annoying since I had put a lot of work into actually getting him a wing for this event, but I can’t argue with his reasoning and would probably have done the same thing myself.
There are so many people to say Hello to, so much to do and they even made me a teamleader (I have persuaded my teammates to take the briefing tomorrow morning) so I really have to go, just wanted to say HI and that Valle is great as ever, in the air and on the ground, and we’re all pretty excited about getting this show on the road tomorrow.
Oh and by the way the big inaugural celebration was cool in a relaxed, chaotic, Mexican kind of way. We all got a kid to hold hands with during the parade through town, mine was Luis Rafael and he was a friendly, if somewhat shy little gentleman, and the speeches after that weren’t even too long. All in all a remarkable day that fortunately had the ability to remind us all why we bother doing these things.
More to come – hopefully I’ll be less tired tomorrow after a leisurely cruise into goal,
Mads.
