True 3d Movies

So.. I might not have mentioned that I have been shooting most of my video in true 3d.

That is - I have 2 identical HD video cameras mounted next to each other either on my helmet, or on a pole and all video is shot as left and right view.

My hope was that with some experimentation with parallax seperation and tow in, I could create some truely cool 3d paragliding video - maybe the first time it's been done ??

Anyhoo, just got back to blighty today and had a quick play with a few sample clips I took, and bugger me it works amazingly well. I'm using optimised colour magenta/cyan anaglyph technique at the moment (you need a pair of glasses like the latest 3d films use - carolyne, etc). I just watched some of Gericke's point and it truely looks awesome. Some clips will work better than others - I playted quite a bit with the toe-in of the cameras. I should be able to knock together a pretty stunning 3d video in a week or so - you will need glasses to watch, but they can be got for 50p for ebay.

The End of the Hol

Well, all flights accounted for this morning, and I only needed one this morning.

So we went over to the Dunes and I got one in.

Test passed (93%), so I am now an official paraglider pilot with a south african rating. I should be able to convert that to BHPA when I get home.

wahee!

Just call me Commander Stu.

sedgefield ahoy

Well.. 30 mins after the last post the wind changed and we were off to sedgefield in the hope of some thermic flights.

5 hours later, and I've set a new record with Jan of 11 top to bottom sedgefield flights in one day.

I also got 2 >10 min thermic ones in there hopping about the thermals. They were all over the ruddy place right enough. One of the other students took off and landed in the trees. I had a few close shaves too.

So I think I now only need 3 flights to get my certificate which can be wee bunny hops I think. However we've still to check Jan's record of flights with mine, so there is always the possibility of a few ones not recorded.

So.. we will see.

stu

The last Day

Well.. it's now noon on saturday... my last day unless we can get a couple of hours in tomorrow morning... and the wind is non-existent.

So we are sitting waiting for it to do something. Doesn't look too promising, so I might have had my last flight yesterday. Still, fingers crossed.

stu

Gericke's Point - the return

Well today was the day - over an hour of soaring over Gericke's point.

frecking awesome scenery.

I even did a few spirals :-)

I tool loads of video on a big long stick, and took loads of 3d footage too, so I think I've got the raw footage to make a freckin' awesome video.

As a teazer, here is a little clip, plus some stills.




Some stills:













Today, I felt like a paraglider :-)

Day 5 of crap weather for flying. Roasting in the morning so got some sun. This is the fifth day not flyable. Humph

Gericke's Point

Here's a video of a flight at Gericke's point (the far eastern end of paradise ridge). This time I managed to not land in a tree.

Wind was too light to soar. The take off is 125m up where the arrow is. In front is basically a 70 degree cliff down to the indian ocean. You jump off the cliff, then pull into the side to try and get lift - there was none so I landed down on the beach. The most spectacular scenery in flight so far.

feck

what is worse than getting back to your room to find a spider literally the size of your hand on the wall ?

answer: failing to squish it and now not being able to find it anywhere....

feck feck feck.

Parawaiting

Today was spent sitting for 5 hours on the top of a hill waiting for the wind to get stronger or change direction.... yeh.. really.

it was, at least sunny, and the view was great (sedgefield) so I at least had summit to do.

There was a bloke there with an 18 year old paraglider... a paraglider old enough to vote! You could breath through the thing..

I reckon you could make a fortune selling dodgy old UK gliders over here.

Flights of the dodo

so, yesterday I actually managed to get 8 flights in. 1 from the end of Paradise ridge in the morning - basically a 125m cliff facing the sea. You jump off the cliff and then try to get some lift from the wind coming off the sea into the cliff.

There wasn't enough wind.

So basically I just went down to the beach after a couple of minutes. Stunning scenery though - it really is pretty dramatic jumping off a 125m high cliff with the Indian Ocean below you - whales frolicking in the waves.

- Video will be posted later.

Map of Africa Video

I finally managed to get the HD video of a Map of Africa flight uploaded last night.

Its more or less a top to bottom, but I have not put any music on it for 2 reasons:

1) hear the silence - bit of a difference from paramotoring
2) to appease the music haters out there.

You'll have to click on video to take you to you tube if you want to see it in full HD.

take offs

One comment I do have i that I hate paramotor take offs - I hate the palaver, the farting around, the failing to launch usually meaning you have to unhook and lay yer wing out again because you're so cumbersome with the motor you can't abort cleanly, etc.

On the other hand - free flying I just always do a reverse - I can take my time, turn or not.. and if it goes wiffy I just turn back and lay it down ready for the next attempt. Take offs almost become a pleasure.

Botlierskop Game Reserve

It's a far cry from Pilanberg (see posts from last year below), but a
few days ago I went along to Botlierskop game reserve - it's the
nearest place to see 'big game' but its a very small park - feels more
like a UK safari park really.

The lions for instance are in a seperate enclosure and are not free to
roam and hunt like in Pilansberg:

You are driven round in a big truck. Saying that, it was still interesting. Didn't really get many good shots though - again look at my Pilansberg piccies for better ones. Here's a few of em:

Here's two Giraffe's fighting:

An Ostrich ...

And a white Rhino (check out the size of that horn - you wouldn't want that up yer arse!):

Woolworths

Woolworths is still one of the biggest department stores out here by
the way, it's just the UK that closed (they are in states too).

my, I am full of fascinating facts me......

Whales

Here's a picture of the whales I saw at the top of the Map of Africa -
long zoom shot so you'll have to use your imagination a bit.

Paragliders have been known to actually spot land on the whales - then taking off again. Local rumour has it that the whales are being seen more and more frequently here and like playing with the pilots.

- I made that bit up.

The Map of Africa

The Map of Africa is one of the main flying sites here. It's a hill at
the back of the town of Wilderness. So called, because the river to
the back of it is sort of shaped like Africa.

The take off is not too bad, though there is the possibility of not
getting enough lift and not clearing the forest in front of you.
Assuming you do, you find yourself flying over the main dual
carriageway around 200 feet up. You can follow the road back and forth
along the ridge, and if the wind is strong enough it is forced up by
the ridge and you get lift. i.e. you can soar. With enough wind you
can fly back and forth all day.

When you've had enough you come out the lift band and head for the
beach, landing next to the car park for a lift back up to the top
again - trying not to land on the topless totty sunbathing on the beach.

Here.s the hill (we launch from just off to the right):

and the landing is just to the front of this picture here:

I've had about 10-15 flights off 'the map' so far. Problems with it are: wind needs to be pretty much SE or it is not flyable. Too light - you risk crashing in the trees, too strong you risk being pulled over the back of the ridge (like I was at the other beach site).

Sedgefield

Sedgefield is one site that has some awesome views from the top and on
the way down.

You start from the top of the hill with a sort of open river valley
below you, and in front of that, the Indian Ocean:

I posted a picture of it a few days ago too. I've only flown there once so far (2 flights), both pretty much top to bottoms (i.e. no lift - so no soaring). At the bottom is a nice big field to land in and the take off is pretty easy. Only issue is that it is pretty much a cliff face once you are in the air , full of massive pine trees - so on the one hand you want to stay close to the ridge (and hence close to the trees) to maximise lift. One other other hand, you don't want to land in a tree. It's very different from Paramotoring, where I am always >500 feet away from the ground unless taking off or landing - paragliding I'm having to get used to my arse being 5 foot above the top of a pine tree... a few times you get a bit of sink and think...'arg prepare for tree landing' which is a bit of a buttock clencher.

View from the House

So, been a bit lacking in posts for the last few days - blown out
today so I'll make up for it a bit.

From my balcony I look out over a river valley between a set of hills
and another set of hills just in front of the sea. In front of the
house is a large tree with loads of herons in it. Here are a few
photos of them:

On the right, right next to the balcony are some trees full of little weaver bird nests. They birds are bright green and they are just making their nests just now. In fact I watched one being made over the last few days. Have to say - it really is bloody amazing how they make them - it really is weaved together - not just stuck together with spit or something.

Here's one starting it's nest:

And here is the same nest finished:

cool eh ?

another blown out day

Looks like today is going to be blown out again. So setting up the
blog to email post so I can add a few more details and stuff.

here's a picture of the sky from the house today:

More details

Here are some
more details then....

I'd been flying above the ridge for about 40mins and was getting pretty high. Suddenly the
wind picked up and I was flying backwards. I had no speed bar system fitted
so I tried pulling down o. The a risers. But was still going backwards.

Next I tried big ears but by now I was behind the ridge in rotar and coming down

all I could do was try to stay out of the bad rotar and get on the ground
but there was only one small patch to land in and it had 3 trees in the middle of it

I managed to land on the ground but the wing got tangled in the trees.

After About 40 mins of tryo g to get it out a local guy turned up with achainsaw

Trees

Had great 40 min soaring flight this morning


However..... Wind then got up and I was dragged over the back of the hill


In the end I managed to land on the only patch of flat land but unforynately my wing had other ideas...

An hour later, and 3 less trees in the world -thanks to the land owner and his chainsaw and I have survived another adventure

Tuesday

Tuesday was flyable, but the wind was moving around all over the place.

We went to a site called 'sedgefield' for the morning. Awesome views from the top of the hill of the bay in front then the indian ocean.

Got 2 flights in there, but not much soaring - the wind just wasn't strong enough coming up the hill most of the time, though a few people did manage a top landing.

We then grabbed some lunch and headed back the the Map of Africa site but it wasn't great conditions either, however I did manage to get one quick top to bottom flight in.

More cool was the 7 Southern Right whales we saw. They were all playing with each other near the beach for at least 30 mins.

We then decided to hit the town for cocktail hour... which sort of extended into a pissup...

I woke up lying in a field at 6.30am....

When I got back to the house, I went straight to my bed and slept for the next 24 hours.. missing wednesday completely... thankfully I didn't miss anything as it wasn't flyable.

Tests

Pissing down rain and blowing a gale today - so a day for the theory.

Today I learned stuff like what can fly:

- birds

- planes

- paragliders

- witches

- little stones

I believe I am well on the way to my south african pilot license.

I also hired a quality ching Deathmaster car for the 2 weeks - bargain at 10 quid a day. It has seats and everything.

First videoed flight and landing - Map of Africa

Hill launch followed by 15-20 mins of soaring the cliff wall above the road, then landing on the beach. sweet. This was my second flight of the day (and second free flight in nearly 10 years). Also the first 2 flights on my Ozone Geo light weight mountain glider which flew really nicely too. Hill is 'Map of Africa'. Landed on the beach ok right next to car to go back up again!

Next launch went fine though

Just to prove I'm not a total muppet, the next one went fine.

How not to launch a paraglider

Ok, here's the video.

Basically a reverse inflation, but when I turned round I screwed it up and didn't get on the left brake quick enough. The result was that the glider started moving to the right. Not usually a problem... however more of a problem when there is a bloke in front of you to the right also about to launch his glider....

My muppet like brain decided that the best thing to do under the circumstances was not to abort the launch.. oh no... I decided that the best thing to do was to continue, leap over the bloke's lines trying to launch, then try to straighten out the wing and take off....

Somehow I actually did manage to jump over all his lines, much to his surprise.. however by the time I landed the wing had collapsed.

Moral of this story: god knows - my brain makes these decisions with no active input from me... so if it happens again, so be it !

Serf Africa - oct 2009 the return!

Well, I'm here! Arrived late sat night in joburg feeling pretty much worse for wear after taking advantage of the free BA booze a bit too much... well 6 miniatures, 5 bottles of wine and a beer.

I think it was a bad beer.

Arrived in George at 2pm, got to Wilderness at 3pm, and was airborne at 4pm!!

Didn't video first flight, but did the second and will post some video tomorrow from a faster connection.

Managed to persuade Jan and Kobi that I could control my glider and they were happy for me to go for a flight.

Ozone Geo flew well - got a decent amount of life and ridge soared for a while before landing on the beach.

Then went up for another flight.

Had a wee mishap that time, as there were a few folk on the hill and I had to jump over one of them... cough... video to follow.

For now, here is a picture from the top of the hill.

Airvault, France

I was just over at Airvault in France weekend before last - first time flying my new PAP paramotor, and fiirst flight since my knee op back in April.

Great flights, and one perfect one flying in/round/through clouds which was awesome.

here's a pic

2nd holiday in sharm

So, day one of the 2nd time I've been in Sharm in 4 weeks.

A day by the beach. Excellent snorkelling in the house reef just outside the hotel (which is very very nice, but a wee bit expensive for food and stuff). Lunch with a few beers cost us 50 quid.

Here is eugene being attacked by a little parrot fish that later bit him on the ear.

last post of the night ... probably

Well, I'd have to say, overall Sharm ain't a bad place. It's certainly not Egypt - its very similar to Cancun in Mexico in terms of it's western centre in the middle of a foreign country.

But is does it better than Cancun. Perhaps because of the lack of americans, there isn't the chain mentality of cancun (no Outback, no Hooters, etc). There is still a genuine blend of egyptian with 'english' and it sort of works I think.

If yer a bit of a 'sit at the bar and watch the folk go by' kind of person, then it is hard to beat. Everything from yer working class family from 'oop north' struggling to cope with the singular choice of mcDonalds, KFC or Rock Cafe... to the middle ground folk for holiday.. perhaps the first time in egypt, trying some new things, to the russians - still wearing mickey mouse t-shirts and clothes that wouldn't look out of place on liberachy. (it is a constant mystery to me, how they can invert the globe and not notice that the rest of earth's population has moveed on from gold tops and leg warmers...)

last camel bar post

it is good to see that the camel bar is still full of the same hardcore dive folk (i.e. blokes and fat munters) that is was 8 years ago... some things never change.

time to move to somewhere else now that I've done the 'reminiscing' blog...

the music ain't changed either... commitments has just finished, and we nw have love shack... it's like frecking Chicagos!!!! (sorry ipswich in-joke).

Bugger me, I was in the right place afterall

Tings ave go a big bigger in the last 9 years....

but the old camel bar is still in the middle of it like an old kernel.

I am sitting in the same spot as I was 8 years ago. Sort of rubbishly, 8 years ago I was also sitting at the bar with a laptop around the same size as the one I am writing this one now ( now: acer aspire one, then: sony vaio picturebook). So.. not a lot of progress in some ways tech wise either!

Last time I was here with 3 mates from Pixelpark where I was working at the time: 1 diver, and the 3 of us learning. It was a good week.

I'm looking at the wall, covered in notes from around the world and flags, wishing I contributed something that I could see now, but I didn't unfortunately.

Here.s a piccie of how it is today

Mother and Daughter week ?

I dunno if this is unusual or sharm is always like this, but there is a weird high number of mother and daughter combos wandering about... I mean 20% or so...

I never even knew 'holidays for yer mother and daughter' was even a thing.. but apparently it is.

Christ Knows what they do all week, 'cause they don't seem to be divers.

The Camel Bar

How things change!!!

9 years ago, the camel bar was the place to be for all the divers.

It was upstairs off the main street, sort of englishy with postcards from round the world posted on the walls.

All the dive instructors and students hung out there at the end of the day - mainly cause it was one of the few bars that existed.

Now we move on 10 years.... it's now like freckin vegas... more pubs, clubs and restuarants than you can shake a stick at.

I'd been warned it was very 'seedy' with russian hookers everywhere and folk offering you drugs every 10 yards.

That I have to say, is mince!!! it's a family place - lots of families wandering around. It's changed from being a dive only resort to a family resort, and I have to say I reckon it's done a pretty good job of it (ian if yer listening - wtf is the problem with sharm??)

Anyhoo, the upstairs corner bar, is now one of the biggest bars on the front.. so much so that I missed it when I tried to find it after 10 years...oops actually i've just realised that Im still sitting in some other bar and not the camel.. so will move on my next drink!!

All in all quite pleasant.

relaxin'

Just relaxing the last few days by the pool.

Might go down to central sharm tomorrow (last day)... or might not :-)

Still about 100 degrees here, so easier to just bum around.

Reading 'Bad Science' by Ben Goldacre. Can recommend it - good read if only to confirm all I knew (and hopefully u did too!!)

Worth a read if only for some ammo to fling back at folk who think that the latest pomegranate juice or whatever fad is current has any scientific basis... (hint: it doesn't)

Another drift dive

Another drift dive in the afternoon - basically you jump off the back of the boat and let the current take you around the reef. When you ave used all your air, you wave the ship to come and pick you back up.



This is a sandfish. It sort of sits on top of bits of corral, not moving. If you are careful, you can sneak up to it like this. It spends most of the time burrowing in the sand for stuff.



Trumpet fish... dunno why on earth they are called that...



more of the brass section.



Some nice corral formation around 15m. Usually look a bit green./blue at this depth, but the light rays just caught it nice.

Ras Mohammed

Earlier start today as we were going to Ras Mahammed - one of the national parks. About 1 1/2 hours away in the boat.

Morning dive was one I did 9 years ago over the wreck of a ship which scattered its cargo of bog seats all over the reef.

There are also some pretty strong currents around here, so you can really find yourself fighting against getting dragged into the reef on one hand, and on the other you get to a bit where the current sucks through the reef to the ocean floor... 300m deep...so you need to keep yer wits about you!



Ideal if you forgot to go on the surface.



These look cool the way the light catches then ad they sort of move as one mass.




kind of flourescent fish, dunno what its called.




A few of your intrepid camera man.

Manta

On the way back from the last dive, the captain spotted a manta ray. First time I've seen one of these so dived in with scuba gear to swim with it. It was around 15-20 feet deep though, so I had to dive down to get the video - hence not very much of it.



Here's a piccy of another fish.

Tuesday - first big dives at Raz El Sid

First day on board ship tuesday. 2 dives over a Ras El Sid. Saw some cool stuff including a big moray eel about 7 feet long, with a mouth big enough to bit yer head off in one gulp.

I'm a bit heavy on my air... out of practice. So my dives are lasting about 10 mins less than some others on the boat.



A big puffer fish. These seem to be under the impression that they are invisible. You can more or less poke yer camera up there arse and they'll just sit there looking at you with a sort of 'silly man... he hasn't even seen me here' kind of look to their face.



About 20m deep this one. Just following the coral.



more from the brass section.



These are called trigger fish. Dunno why. They crunch through coral a bit like parrot fish (sometimes you can hear the crunching). They are about 2-3 feet long.



Jumping in off the boat to start a drift dive.

Gooper and Angel Fish

Here's a couple more pics. One of a big grooper (about 3 feet) with some teeth showing, and some angel fish swimming about a rope that looked pretty cool.

jars and relaxing

Finished off the dive with some jars (??) and some relaxing at the pool.

40 degrees (>100 F) today. very nice. :-)

First Dive

It's been 5 years since I last dived, so I had to do a sort of min exam before I could go out on the boat again.

started with a trip to the beach, and some paper quiz questions...

1) why does a duck float

2) do little stones float

3) why does a witch weigh the same as a duck.

Next... practical so into the water!