Getting up!

I took off on my paraglider, and negotiated the very crowded skies watchfully...

Getting up!

I took off on my paraglider, and negotiated the very crowded skies watchfully...

Sadly, there rarely seems to be enough space to turn where and when you want to - safely - on SHGC sites these days, I've noticed. In fact, much of the time seems to be spent simply trying to avoid others, and getting into dangerous situations, rather than trying to make the most out of the lift. Sigh, again...

Indeed, for the first few minutes of my flight I did spent most of my time avoiding others, and only a little bit of the time turning in lift - trying hard to stay up, whilst at the same time not getting in anyone else's way. It must be a real nightmare for low airtime pilots, although some of these seem happily unaware of the very real dangers... Ignorance is bliss, I guess!

A fire was burning out front, with the smoke marking out the wind drift and some potential lift - a chance to escape the crowds, perhaps?! I tried to surreptitiously glide off out from the hill, towards this possible lift, in hope of a climb.

Unfortunately for me, I was spotted and so did everybody else, all at the same time! Deep sigh...

As I was gliding, I spotted some birds climbing very nicely further away towards Alciston and went for them, expecting the crowds to follow yet again... To my surprise (and joy!) nobody else did. Hooray!

I found a lovely climb (around 2m/s on 30 sec average, which is a pretty good climb in the UK) that took me up and away from the maddening crowds to join The Beardless One, who until now had been looking down on the spectacle from above all alone, poor thing.

Dave saw me coming up, and came over to get some of the lift I was in. Nice to have someone to talk to (not shout at) for a change! "Hello Carlo", he hollered gleefully as I quickly caught him up on the Tempest.