saturday above lions head

well, another day of waiting for the dz to open. but at 2pm they finally
closed for the day.

by then it had been on and off raining all morning. the others had bogged
off to lions head which is the right most pointy hill when looking at table
mountain from where i am staying.

so i packed my wing and a harness in the car and headed off to join them.
figured a bit of ground handling never goesq wrong.

really nice area out at the front of the cape. they were landing on the
cricket pitch of some fancy private club (who were doing some sort of model
shoot at one end. . . while the others were landing paragliders at the
other.

there were quite a few gliders. the game seemed to be "who can buzz the bar
the closest before landing on the cricket pitch.

well, wind had died off to nowt by the time I arrived. You need a bit of
wind to ground handle (i.e. kite the glider) so there wasnt much I could do
really.

Barry jumped off lions head with a tandem passenger and had a decent flight
down. no lift though.

we packed up the gliders and had a beer and were going to head back. Id have
probably got a few paramotor flights in on dolphin beach, but andy (another
scot staying with barry) wouldnt have been able to fly.

Instead, barry offered to take me up for a tandem glide. that way andy got
to also have another flight from the top.

I wasnt too bothered about doing a tandem to be honest. . . tandem sky
dives, passenger in race car, pillion on bike. . all things that have never
interested me. . prefer to be in control (or out of control).

but it looked like the views would be good and itd be chirlish to deny andy
another flight, so up we went.

you drive up lions head most of the way, and then there is about a 15-20
minute hike to the take off spot. . . thats a hike with a glider and
harness on yer back of course. . so was knackered by the time i got to the
top, and wishing i hadnt had that pint at the bar.

take off spot is a 45 degree slope about 700 feet below the summit.

i got harnessed up to barry, barry inflated wing and we were up !

the wind had really picked up off the sea, and as it hits the mountain, its
forced up the front of it. flying in this is called ridge soaring.

and soaring we went ! both me and barry are light and we were flying a big
tandem "big enough for a fat baxtard customer" wing.. so we basically shot
up like a cork. In less than 5 minutes we had gained about 900 feet, and
were now high over the summit of lions head, looking down in the folk at
the top, and behind the summit over to cape town centre, the bay, robin
island, etc.

got some great video and stills.

barry reckoned we could fly through the pass and over to table mountain, so
we had a go...

we made it to the start of table mountain. the plan was then to fly in
towards it, get some lift from the rising wing and use that to ridge soar
along it.

however, about 50 feet from the mountain the lift disappeared and we started
sinking like a stone, only about 20 feet from the side of the mountain at
this point.

so we headed out again and got enough lift to take us back over to lions
head again.

the wind had definatley moved by now though, it was coming more from the
south eliminating most of the lift.

this was causing the glider to pitch and roll, and drop suddenly, then rise
suddenly...

A combination of being a bad passenger (I get sick sitting in the back of a
car!), having had nothing to eat that day but a pint of lager and a fry up,
staring into my camera screen to get video shots, and finally being jogged
all over the sky by the wind, finally took its toll. . .

I just had time to tell barry I wasnt feeling too well, before I chundered
all over my flight suit and into the air. if there was anyone below me,
they are no doubt still wondering how lumps of sick can hail out the sky.

anyway, we went down pretty sharpish after that, landed on the cricket
pitch, and I lay on the grass for a bit feeling like crap, and like a right
nobber.

definately give the tandems a miss from now on.

tomorrow the gliders are driving 2 hours away, so Im gonna stay here and
hopefully sky dive. If we are put on standby Im going to go down to dolphin
beach and ground handle if the weather permits.

1 week left. . cant afford any more downtime.