I had a great weekend with my girls: we played in the pool, played games, drew, wrote music with friends. It's about as good as it gets. As the day was winding down yesterday I checked the conditions at Torrey: straight in 12-14. It was about 4. I asked my wife if she'd miss me if I ran down for a flight. That's just what I did.
Scripps pier easily in glide range
With no traffic it's a 20 minute drive to the gliderport. I parked, pulled out my wing, laid it out and ran for the cliff. The next hour was heavenly. There were many wings in the sky but tons of lift. I used to loath flying on weekends because it was too crowded. With conditions like this it really doesn't matter.
I got tons of lift off of the south ridge. I came in and out a dozen times doing my half-assed wingovers and coming back in. There were a lot of late-day thermals. You could really feel the heat coming off of the beach. Alternately you'd feel the cold ocean air.
I had more than enough altitude to do a run directly over the Scripps pier, but I didn't want to chance it. I was having a perfect run. I was here to enjoy myself and walking a few miles back to my car would not fall in that category, not today anyway.
I started feeling the wind die down. I had to scrape to get back up on the north ridge. If it weren't for those strong late-day thermals I would have had to land on the beach. There were already 3 or so wings down there. I came into the LZ and folding my wing.
I spent an hour or so adjusting my harness. Not that I needed all that time. A family came by and I let all the kids sit in my harness on the trainer. They were having a blast. I was so happy to be off the clock.
A full view looking north of the Torrey ridge.
This weekend I'm heading to Hawaii. I my fly both Maui and Oahu if I'm lucky.
