First Video

Here's the first video - my first flight down 'The Map'. First free flight ever on the reaction.

flight video

Day 2

There is another couple staying with Jan at the moment, Terry and Sasha. Terry is starting the PG course today down the dunes. I tagged along to take some piccies. Not flying there - didn't fancy the walk back up to the top of the dune everytime. I'm hoping to get flying in the afternoon.

I've stuck some pictures I took from the morning here on smugmug(day1 gallery) - Terry is the one having his first flight (and first walk back up the top!).

Day 1 Arrived !

Arrived ! in the 20s, pretty cloudy and they've had a lot of rain the last few days, but fingers crossed - should get some flying done.

Jan's letting me hire his paramotor (miniplane) so the plan will be to paramotor some, and paraglide some. That's about as deep as the plan gets at the mo.

If it looks really nice and soarable over Gerick's point, then I'll PG. Maybe Map of Africa too - otherwise I'll get some PPG in.

I want to fly all along the coast - there is a beach almost all the way - so no problems if I need to land out.

Well... expect that I'll then be on a beach miles from the nearest road - but I'll worry about that if it happens.

Feeling pretty knackered though - so need a good nights sleep then we'll see what the weather brings tomorrow (monday).

took a few shots with the DSLR of the burds in the tree outside my window - I tried the same thing last year with the Panny FZ30 bridge camera and almost all of them were blurry. With the faster focusing, faster lenses and larger sensor of the DSLR, I got a few good shots.

Day 1

Well, I've arrived. Working through the flights, I think this is my 7th trip to South Africa, but only my 3rd for 'pleasure' purposes.

Virgin this time - never flown them before - always BA or once KLM. Got what is apparently the best economy seat on the place - 63a according to reviews on the net. Have to say it was not bad - loads of leg room + lots of space between me and the window. I'd say roughly on par with business class on KLM tbh.

Hoped there might be a chance that paramotoring Ian might be flying the thing, but no such luck.

Impressed with Virgin - one thing noticeable is that it all full size bottles of alcohol on board - no wee bottles of wine. Which was a cunning move I reckon - you need to walk up to the galley for a drink otherwise and they don't exactly advertise the fact.

It's 00:44 when I write this. I reckon a few more G+Ts and I might sleep a bit before we get to Joburg.

4 hours at joburg before the connection, so plenty time.

Day 4

Hmm - not been any updates cause I've been doing FA really.

GOpro wise - yeh - its the curved lens - if I'd brought one of my flat
waterproof cases I'd have been alright. As it is, its useless
underwater this trip.

It has been reaaally windy the last 3 days - I went out snorkeling on
monday, but was lucky to get back of the reef to be honest - the
current was sucking me off it, and then sort of like a washing
machine. After struggling against it for about 15 minutes, I ended up
having to grab the coral with my hands and sort of pull myself along
the bottom, come up for air, and repeat. Was knackered when I got back.

Maybe that was why no one else was snorkeling :-/

Anyhoo, last few days it has been about 30mph+ wind and 5 feet high
swell with 2-3 foot breakers... so NOT snorkeling weather :-)

So - sitting around pool, finished the last book in the Lisbeth
trilogy. Started editing my Las Can video again today.

They are still going out scuba diving twice a day, but to be honest,
I'm not bothered about that at the mo - would rather just relax.

Wifi is available, but very very slow - so the odd email is about all
it's up to.

That's me over half way through my holiday - only 2 days to go!!

IF I was here for a week... but I'm not! yeeeehh... so another 10 days
to go.. sweet.

Maw - if you read this - I have been wearing suncream every day and
have not got in the least burned even thought temp is about 35 (wind
makes it seem deceptively cool). I'm just going nicely brown (not
something you hear a scotsman say very often).

Egypt Again - Dahab

Hot and Windy. Good combination.

Just by the pool today - I'll try snorkelling for the first time tomorrow.

I tried my 'equipment' today - I brought the monopod that I use on the paramotor - it basically allows me to mount my panasonic camera on one side of it, and the gopro on the other side. I thought it would work well in the water.

So tried it in the pool today - checking it worked and was waterproof, etc.

Waterproof wise, it works fine. However the problem is the gopro is a fixed focus fish-eye lense. It _says_ its 60m waterproof... so you'd think/expect it would work underwater.... however it did not mention... that every frame will be blurry as feck.... must be the optics not up to working under water with the refraction. bummer.

Ill have a look on the internet to seeif anyone has a solution

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......