Sorry friends and family for being so late getting to my blog. It has been seriously hectic for me since I boarded the flight from Anchorage last Wednesday morning.
Things started somewhat uncomfortably as I was forced into the jumpseat from Anchorage to Chicago, the longest scheduled 737 flight in the world. Things went quite smoothly in Chicago. Traveling international jumpseat I wasn't too sure of how things would work. My plan was to take United from Chicago to Sao Paulo. This worked splendidly and I was seated in Business class up front in a seat which actually reclined into a laying down position. Nice 4 course meal, drinks and then pillows and a blanket and I actually slept rather comfortably for 7 of the 10 hours of flight. Wow! Anchorage to Chicago, and then to Sao Paulo and I hadn't spent one cent and was actually rested. What a deal.
The honey moon ended about an hour after we landed in Brazil when I discovered that my bags, being marked with "standby" stickers, were left sitting on the ramp in O'hare. Some very special treatment by the agent in Chicago who didn't bother to call down to the ramp and have the standby bags boarded after I was given a seat. No problem, I thought, they will just send them the next day and I'll get them soon enough. So much for my warmup day but thats no big deal. I went on with my trip catching my flight from Sao Paulo to Belo Horizonte, and then another regional flight from Belo Horizonte to Governador Valadares. Well of course I spent half of the next day on the phone explaining that I just had to have my paraglider because I was in a competition which was starting the next day. "No problem - your lugguage arrived from Chicago this morning and we'll have it expedited to you and you'll receive it no later than 10 pm." So I relaxed somewhat not realizing that I was just being fed the standard fare of bs to placate me so I'd stop calling them. 48 hours later, after numerous opportunites for them to send my bags had come and gone, the luggage arrived.
The first day of the competition had come and being without my gear I ended up begging to borrow gear at the last minute. A US pilot who is here as a tour guide to visiting pilots offered me his harness, which was a much smaller size than I normally fly with. One of the top Brazilian pilots, Frank Brown offered me his SOL Tracer comp glider as he had a brand new proto type glider to fly. I had my instruments and helmet with me so at least I was able to race the first day instead of sitting out waiting for my gear. It was interesting flying a very different competition glider but the flight was excruciating as the harness was way too small and I was very uncomfortable. I did manage goal but was very slow arriving.
On Sunday, day 2 I had my gear and was excited to race. I'd never even taken my new Boomerang 6 out of the bag so I was a bit apprehensive about that. After nearly crashing into another woman pilot who had blown her launch and was down below me, I got away from the hill and was instantly amazed at the feel and performance of my new glider. It seems for the first time I am really on equal footing with the best gliders out there. I'm very happy with it but must remember that conditions are mild here and I can't really pass judgement until I fly it in stronger conditions. I flew well yesterday, taking second place for the day (so I'm told but haven'tactually seen the posted scores). There were some pilots who flew a bit further than I, but I received more leading points for pushing out ahead and taking more risk than those behind. I did have a rather hard landing and tweaked an ankle, but thank goodness I decided to wear my lace-up ankle braces which clearly prevented a far more seirous injury. This new glider is a very different animal than I'm used to, and so far, landing it with no wind has been a bit challenging. I'm rather sore but nothing serious....
We had thunderstorms and tons of rain over night, and conditions didn't look so good this morning for having a task, but in classic GV tradition, things dried out, cloud base gradually rose throughout the morning, and we were able to have a fun task of about 45 K. After the very first glide from the start cylinder, I don't know for sure, but I've been told that 40 or more pilots sunk out right away. The conditions were quite light and there was some serious decision making to be made very early in the race. I took about a half a dozen turns in this gaggle of at least 100 gliders and decided right then and there that this was just crazy and dangerous. There were all these pilots circling in a small bubble of lift and gradually sinking lower and lower. That was some serious gaggle suck and I decided that I was going to press on and that if I sunk out it was a good safety decision and that was that. Well, I didn't sink out and was able to get established after scratching around for about 10 minutes in a pretty good climb which took me all the way to cloud base. I flew part of the race with a gaggle of about 8-9 gliders, and then part of the race by myself. Only a few pilots made the goal and I landed about 7 k short... Might have made the top 10 for the day and I was happy with my decision making through most of the flight. Towards the end the day was shutting down and I made a good plan to use the rest of my altitude, and then changed my mind after I'd flown half way to where I thought I would find a thermal. I made a 90 deg turn and by the time I flew to my new destination I was low and couldn't find anything to keep me going. Even the buzzards were scratching around in very light conditions and wern't able to climb at all.....
This morning I moved from a small box of a room which was in the centro area to a Posada which is out on the 'island' and is much nicer. A couple of the other US pilots are staying here so it's nice to be with my flying friends.
The organization at this comp is quite marginal at best. I guess there was quite a bit of political wrangling about which organization would run the competition, and the group which is running it is making plenty of mistakes. But we are racing, getting retrieved (eventually), and having a great time. The next comp will be the PWC (paragliding world cup) and will be strongly organized and run so am looking forward to that. The competition at the Brazil Nationals is strong, but the pwc will be far stronger. I suspect that I will be 'schooled' in many different ways.... I'm just excited that I get to particiapate in such competition as the pwc.
I have to sleep now and 'reset' and do it all over again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.....I'll try and post some pictures when I can....
Jack
Link to the official Valadares Open website for results and other info. They are very slow in posting results and have had multiple scoring issues..... The last two digits of each of the "Task" lines are the date. The only scores posted so far are for March 14th, the first race day which was Saturday.
http://www.xcbrasil.org/reg/FVPO2009/?a=rs
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