coming home early

weather still foggy in san diego. Nick and Whitters are gonna hire the Harleys for a day tomorrow - drive up the coast - stay the night, and come back the next day.

I've done it before though a few times, and am not really too bothered about doing it again - for the money I'll save not doing that I can buy a new carbon propeller for the Bailey. Plus, I don't have any of my gear with me and don't really want to wear one of their badly fitting piss-pots. Plus no leathers at all and I doubt they'll hire them - so it'd be riding in trousers and a regular jacket - not really very good protection - especially on roads you don't know. So I'm gonna give it a miss.

As it is, I've changed my return flight to Wednesday rather than the original Sunday. It'll get me home 4 days early - and who knows - maybe a few spells of decent weather at home will get me out on the bike or into the sky.

I've had a couple of days of thinking about alternatives, and can't really think if anything I really want to do - We might have been able to hire some paramotors in Phoenix, Arizona but it's 400 miles away and would probably have just been flying around an airport. I considered hiring a car and driving up to Lake Havasu (home of the 'London Bridge') for better weather, but it would still have been an extra 5-600 quid or so which could be used for other things if I come home early.

So - a bit of a messy trip really - Some nice flights in the end - I think my total was 5 or 6 long flights. Plus I got a bit better at low level flying. But it wasn't the mecca of paramotoring holidays that I expected it to be.

San Diego

So - I was booked in for another week at the ppg place - but the room was rubbish, and the weather is rubbish so I decided to call it a day.

I'm back in San Diego now with 3 of the others. One guy, Alan,  is flying back tueday and the other two (Nick and Whitters) are here for another week like me.

We don't really know what we're gonna do for a week to be honest. There's talk of hiring some Harley's but we have no kit with us so we'd need to hire all the  stuff too.

Alternatively could just find a nice hotel and chill for a week, but it's not very warm here - not sitting at the pool weather.

Checked into a Holiday Inn Express near the airport for tonight and tomorrow, not cheap, but it's nice to have a clean room with aircon after being constantly damp for a week.

So, the flying bit is over for sure - and was all very much of an anti-climax. I got 6 flights in the end which was nice, but I can't say I learned anything new really.

last day here

well - another long flight - 1 1/2 hours on friday morning. I was hoping to get over to a large jesus statue and fly around it, but I just didn't have enough fuel. I made a call and turned back, and made it down with about a coffee cup of fuel left.

I did do some spirals and wingovers though which was cool.

quad

here's a wee one from riding the quad wednesday and climbing the lighthouse at the end of the marina.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRC3T0QxLZs

sea flying

Here's a few shots I took of one of the guys flying below me.

drying your clothes - mexican style

I wondered what the hell this was - mexican hieroglyphics ?

day5 - fog fog fog

christ almighty I ain't doing another week of this here I'll tell you that.
Yes - it's flyable, but hardly wonderful flying. I think I'll be trying to organise an alternative plan for week 2.

GPS track from today (thursday) flight

http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1333145

fog don't stop me

Here we go - flight numero 4 from yesterday. Flying along the coast, inland a bit and into the cloud.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn4oMTjhwyk

Also had another flight today - a long one. 1 1/4 hours along the coast. total of about 45km or so. Not too bad - even made it into the sun for a couple of minutes. Was bloody freezing in the end though. Landed with about 2 litres from a full tank.

day 4 - it's morning in mexico… and it's…. yup: foggy

Right, getting decking sick of this fog now. I think we all might mutiny today….

day 3 - guess what - it's foggy

yup, another foggy cold day in mexico.

The morning was spent helping Jeff shoot a stunt video - with him flying his paramotor and landing it on a moving truck. I was one of the photographers - sitting in a shopping basket in the front of a quad bike while the driver drove it along behind the truck along the beach.

Got some great video of that - but since it's going on Jeff's new DVD I can't really post it. But here's a still:

In the afternoon I went for a bit of a cross country flight - flew over into a valley and spied a bit of sunshine hitting the top of a mountain. So up I went in search of it. When I got into it I could see the sun for the first time (LITERALLY) since leaving the UK. The cloud was more sparse here, so I went for it and flew up through the cloud into the sun. With the sun behind me, my shadow was on the cloud and I had a circular halo rainbow around me!:

It closed in though, and I had to fly down through the cloud to get back down - there was about 10 seconds where I couldn't see a thing, but it was so smooth and benign that I made a call that it was safe…. cough. don't try this at home kids….

anyhoo, got back ok and it was a nice flight. I yup - I landed on my feet again for the 4th time. Getting the hang of this now :-)

3 flights later

yup - got another. thats 3 in a day. not bad. all good takeoffs and landings :-)

best of all, on the last flight, I saw a mother dolphin and 2 babies. and around them were about 30 or 40 little rays (about the size of dinner plates). Obviously dolphins don't eat rays… so that was pretty cool. As I dropped down over the sea closer to them, they came to the surface - I think they must have felt the vibrations of the noise. Sorry no pictures. hopefully when it's sunnier later in week I'll get some pictures.

So, all in all, not a bad day 2 even with the cold and crappy fog. Fingers crossed that tomorrow the weather gets better.

Here's the motor I'm flying. An old fresh breeze thing with a snap100 engine. plenty of power, and quiet - just shitty high hand points.

Day 2 and in the air!

Well - bloody foggy again today, but not as much - so into the air we went!

Fluffed the first forward - wasn't used to the high hang points being soooo high.

Next attempt fine, power on and up I went. I'm flying a snap 100 engined thing. It's actually a very quiet motor, and I only need just more than tick over to fly level.

Once up it was nice and smooth, but visibility was around 500m only.

I stayed up for about 30 mins. And.. wait for it - landed on my feet!!! yeh :-)

A bit later I had another flight - another forward - up first time and had more of a play around. The wind was getting up though, and I was more or less hovering by the end. Which at least made the landed easy. Again managed to land on my feet.

Wind picked up now, and getting a bit more gusty as we sit here having lunch. We'll have to see what the afternoon holds….

hmmm

well. it's 6pm. and it stayed foggy all day. not good.

All we can do is hope that it's a one off -  a week of this and we'll all be well fecked off.

As it is we sort of hung about all day, did some motor hang tests and had some beers at the local bar.

Our instructor, Jeff, arrives tonight. Fingers crossed that tomorrow will NOT be foggy as fuck. This was as clear as it got before it came back in to 50m or so:

Also it's been quite cold. Too cold to fly with shorts and t-shirts anyway , and thats all I've brought. Hopefully one of the guys should be coming back from a shopping trip stateside today with a fleece for me.

So - not a great start to the two weeks - scrappy old paramotors, crap weather, and lacking in organisation a bit - however the week is young - fingers crossed it can only get better!

day1 in mexico

10am in the morning here. We got in last night and settled in.

This morning there is quite a lot of mist, and it's not cleared as of yet - looks like it might hand around all day :-(

We've got a bit of a paramotor shortage though, so probably the best time to have a crap weather day. Michael (the owner) was expecting a bunch of new paramotors apparently, but they've not turned up, so all we've got is a bit of a rag tag bunch of machines gathered from here and there. I think the count is about 6 - with 3 additional ones that are really knackered.

There are 10 of is in total, so I think we'll be fine. It will take a bit of adjusting since they are all high hang point things. We've already adjusted our brakes in readiness.

Jeff Goin (the instructor) is arriving this evening, so today we'll just have to see if the fold burns off and take it from there.

It's not particularly warm it has to be said - and of course I've only packed shorts and t-shirts (it's a holiday!! it's a matter of principle).

anyhoo, hopefully I'll get a flight in by the end of the day.