Dominican - Feb. 11, '07

The comp was officially over, and six of us hard-core Canucks were looking forward to another week of flying. We headed out as early as we could (which wasn’t very) to the coast, which was a 3 hour drive or so from where we were inland.

We found a hotel, dropped off our luggage, and went searching for La Playita, a coastal soaring site. After a bit of searching we ended up on a long gravel road that looked like it would take us to launch. Sure enough, after a bit of patience and testing the Suzuki’s durability, we made it.

La Playita is about 400 feet ASL, with a beautiful view of the sea. It was fairly windy, but after sending Deryk out as our wind dummy, it was decided it was soarable.

Bruce helped me launch, and for the next hour and a half, I made passes along the ridge – it was awesome. Flying with so many other gliders on such a small ridge was a really good experience - I tried my best to obey ridge rules, and made all my turns deliberate. I think I did okay – nobody ended up yelling at me!!!

Some French pilots joined us later on, and that’s when things got a bit overcrowded…especially since he expected everyone to clear the way and make room for him. None of us were impressed, but he missed the best of the soaring anyway, as the lift band started to fade.

I think it was during this flight where I got in tune with things again. I experimented with different brake pressure, weight shift, and keeping my glider turns flat. It was good too trying to figure out why there was more lift in some places than there was in others.

I stayed above launch for a while, and then just cruised along the ridge. Bruce started sinking out and landed, and not too long afterwards I was stuggling to stay afloat, so I landed too. I have to brag here (I don’t get to do this often in paragliding), and say that my landing was PERFECT! There was a small area to land in, and damn, I must say that I nailed it! Apparently there is photographic evidence of this – I will post it once I have it.

I later found out that messing up a landing in that part of the country was not what you wanted to do….

Oscar, Bruce and I went to the rocky beach while the guys did some swimming. I wasn’t in the mood to swim, so after a while, I decided to head back to the car. I took a slightly different route along the beach and noticed there was a path between some low bushes. After literally 5 steps, I felt something on my leg, looked down, and this is what I saw:

I was so surprised! I didn’t know where the hell this thing came from, and after pulling on it, realized it was lodged pretty deep in my leg.

I waddled back to the road where everyone else caught up with me. We couldn’t pull the thing out, so we cut the spikes, and then pulled what was remaining out of my skin. Crazy!!! Imagine landing in a whole bush of this stuff – yikes!

I started reacting a bit to the pricks, but Oscar came to the rescue with his ultra-cool Superman band-aids. My bug-bitten, scraped, blotchy legs now bore some pretty hip decorations.


That night we went to dinner, and to bed at the bed-bug hotel.