Dominican - Feb. 15, '07

I’m pretty sure that when we awoke this day, it was very windy, and Oscar, Bruce and I decided it could be a good opportunity to check out the launch at Jarabacoa, a nearby town. Jens and Deryk stayed behind to catch up on a few things.

The three of us headed to Jarabacoa, had no idea where we were going, so we stopped a motoconche (motorcycle dude) and asked him where launch was. This guy clearly had no idea either, but instead, kept asking people along the way which way it was.

We finally arrived, and scouted the place. The launch was kind of tricky as launch was kind of low compared to the clearing you had to clear with your glider in order to properly take off. The clearing below main launch was unlaunchable because of the shrubbery that sloped towards it, and because of a dyke-like mound of dirt that encircled it.

The wind was pretty cross, and neither of us seemed to keen on experimenting with the site. Instead, Bruce and Oscar fixed Oscar’s broken speedbar, while I gladly supervised.

We headed back to our main launch at Casabito, but not before taking a major detour through the mountains on a road that rattled all of your internal organs. It was pretty intense, and I sat in the back, I was relieved once we were on asphalt again.

During our rickety ride however, we saw some beautiful scenery, and passed through some pretty charming mountain towns. If you want to forget about time all together, move to a place just like that.

We then passed through an area around Las Palmas, which appropriately was embellished by clusters of palm trees. It was amazingly beautiful, and the landscape was much different from what we were used to in the other places we spent time at in the Dominican.

We somehow got lucky and ended up back to launch, where Deryk gave us the day’s report on the wind. Unfortunately for him, the conditions were a bit rodeo, and he was glad when his flight was over. We were happy to take good advice, and headed for the hotel for a siesta.

We all returned to launch a few hours later, and decided it was safely flyable. Jens and Deryk launched and had a little flight, when Oscar and I flew out, and encountered some really fun ridge lift along one of the fingers to the left of the river.

This flight was super-fun; it was so awesome to play in the thermals and ridge lift, and just muck around in the air up there. I felt adventurous, and while mentally replaying some of the advice Jocky and my fellow Canuckian pilots gave me earlier, went to spots around the ridge I normally would not have.

It was a fantastic flight – one I suppose I wish I had during the competition, but I was just glad to have it then and there. As the sun was setting, the lift lightened, and after 40 minutes, I landed in the valley.

As it was our last night all together, we headed to Bonao and checked out a local club. I wasn’t about to have a repeat of the previous week’s merigue night, so I pretty much stayed put, drinking lightly, and cringing at some of the local’s debauched dance moves. There’s no way what they were doing would be legal in a Canadian dance club.

Well, who am I to judge. Half of us called it a night after the club closed at the surprisingly early hour of midnight, and made our way back to the hotel, hoping for good flying the next day.