More Flying in Santa Barbara

What an amazing week of flying in Santa Barbara! Six days, six mountain flights . . . and a short sled ride each to Bates Beach. 

Our first three days are highlighted in two previous blog posts, here and here. We then had return trips to Skyport, EJ Bowl and, the site of our very first mountain flight, VOR. We also tried to fly Pine Mountain (north of Ojai) but, unfortunately, it was blowing over the back. 

A hang glider near "the round house" -- one of several distinctive landmarks when flying Skyport or EJ Bowl.

Another distinctive landmark -- the antenna farm.
The ridge that both these buildings are on is a great thermal generator!

Paragliders and a jet.

Hang gliders fly much faster than paraglider.
As I was taking this photo, the hang glider seems to absolutely whiz between them! 

Andrew (centre of photo) making a perfect landing at the Parma LZ.

A hang glider getting low near the beautiful neighbourhood around Parma Park.

Andrew walking back to the car from the Parma LZ.

A foggy day on the coast but clear skies at VOR.

Andrew landing at VOR. Fog in the distance.

L-R: Logan, Chad and Sarah approaching the "T" -- the landing area for VOR.

Sarah, tell Chad to run faster and get out of your way! ;-) 

Looking out to Las Padres Forest from Pine Mountain launch. 

Ready to go! Waiting, hoping for the wind to cooperate. They didn't.  :-( 

But the stick insect was pretty cool. 

As was this ring-necked snake. (The red ring around his neck is hard to see in these photos.)

Thanks so much to all the pilots, friends new and old, who welcomed us to fly with them!

Santa Barbara Soaring Association
Fly Above All Paragliding (and Chris, our very first paragliding instructor!)
Eagle Paragliding
Let Fly Paragliding

Tandem Thermalling

I struggle with knowing how to thermal properly. At least that's what I tell myself even though I've had lots of explanations and coaching on it. Truthfully, I just really don't like it very much. It can be scary! (Ya, ya, ya, I can hear all the smart-assed remarks from some of you reading this!) 

Regardless, I decided to do a tandem flight with Dilan (our SIV instructor from Let Fly Paragliding) and, while I learned a lot from him and now know what it feels like to thermal efficiently (it's not nearly as bumpy when you actually have the skill to stay in the thermal!) I have to admit to myself that it's just going to take much more practice, pushing myself a bit more, and not running away when it starts to get uncomfortable. 

As Dilan pointed out, a few bumpy thermals is way less "exciting" that the maneuvers we did on the SIV course. I say, "But that's different!" And both of us are right. 

My goal for the next flights is forcing myself to thermal a little more and a little more each time. Eventually, the comfort and confidence will come. I hope! 

Off launch, we thermalled up and got high enough to do some cross country. We followed this main ridge for a while, getting additional thermals and height off some of the side ridges.

Flying tandem with Dilan.

View of the coastline south of Santa Barbara.

And then we headed to the beach! (About 20 km from launch.)

Looking down at our LZ at Padero Beach.

First Flights from Skyport and EJ Bowl

We were hoping for some mountain flights near Santa Barbara and the first two days delivered! It was the weekend so there were lots of people flying. 

We met the group at Parma Park, the landing zone for the Skyport and EJ Bowl launches. We'd heard a lot about the Parma LZ . . . and how sketchy it can be! Lots of trees and rocks to navigate on your way in. 

We, along with some other new and new-to-the-site pilots, got a site briefing from Mitch Riley (who we watched compete in this year's Red Bull X-Alps). Yep, the LZ has many hazards! But Mitch gave really good info on how to approach it and, fortunately, there is a lower LZ just down the hill that you can bail out to if things don't go exactly right. 

A pilot just after launching from Skyport.

Site briefing and the lower landing zone at Parma Park

A very full van on Saturday. There were even more people on Sunday!

It was a long, winding, steep drive up the hill (nicely paved the whole way) to launch. Cyclists were slowly making their way up and absolutely whizzing by on their way down. Which looked way more scary than paragliding!

The launch area at Skyport is . . . well, "not the friendliest" would be a good description. It's steep and not very big. And crowded with over a dozen paragliding pilots (plus the hang gliders taking off from a pullout in the road just above). One of the experienced pilots was very kind to help lay out wings for all the pilots that went before him. Basically he kept them from sliding down the steep slope. Mitch helped the new students launch and it was a bit nerve wracking to watch! Thankfully, both Andrew and I launched without issue!

The small "get ready" area at Skyport.

Steep launch slope at Skyport.

Once again the air was "spicy" but we're starting to get a bit more used to it and feeling slightly more comfortable in the air. And had no problem getting enough height to clear the huge power lines between launch and LZ!

We both had great flights (Andrew was up 1.5 hours) and managed to navigate through the trees and rocks and land safely in the main LZ. Everyone else landed safely but some in various locations. One on a plateau in another area of the park, one with his wing in a tree below the lower launch, and one who barely missed a tree in the main LZ but fell, got scraped up a bit but was okay. The next day, a new pilot sunk out and landed on a road near the park and even one of the tandem pilots landed in a small tree with his passenger.  (I'm so glad we did our first mountain flights from VOR which has a nice launch area and a huge LZ!)

Sarah and Logan, a couple from Santa Barbara that we'd met on the SIV course the previous week, arrived just as Andrew was taking off. I landed first and when I thought Andrew was approaching the LZ I got on the radio and let him know what conditions were like. Humorously, Andrew said no that wasn't him and then Sarah thanked me for the information as it was her coming in.

Sarah approaching the LZ. 

Sarah and another pilot losing some altitude before the LZ. 

Logan approaching the landing.

Logan making one last turn into the LZ.

Love the colors of these hang gliders!

Andrew and a hang glider. 

Andrew approaching the LZ.

The next day we launched from EJ Bowl which is a higher and much nicer launch area. Which was good because there were at least five more pilots on Sunday than there were on Saturday. Again, there are some terrain hazards to be aware of and you need to ensure you clear them or get high enough that they aren't a concern. As it was our first flights from there, we cleared the hazards with plenty of room but then found no thermals afterwards so we both had shorter flights than the day before. Thankfully though, the air wasn't quite as rough. Looking forward to more flying days this week!

It's starting to look like busy skies already but the area is large enough that people spread out pretty fast.

I landed at the lower LZ this time and got photos of Andrew landing at the higher one.
In this photo you really have to wonder where he's going to land!

San Luis Obispo and Avila Beach

From Dunlap, we headed back towards the coast. San Luis Obispo is on the Amtrak route and we've enjoyed stopping here on our various train trips.

The Cat and the Fiddle -- in San Luis Obispo

There's a small creek that runs though the town and a couple nice restaurants that over look it. We really like Novo. 

At Novo Restaurant

We enjoyed this local cider. All the labels featured a bear doing various sports.
Skydiving and bike riding on these two bottles. 

A cool drawing on the backside of the label. 

The San Luis Obispo Botanical Gardens is fairly small but the expansion trails have been started and mapped out. What has been done so far is really nice!

This sun dial was quite accurate! Stand on the month marker in the middle and hold your arms/hands together above your head and your shadow points to the time. 

Our next stop was Avila Beach. It's a coastal paragliding site but the winds were very strong and completely the wrong direction while we were there. We visited the Central Coast Aquarium and it was really good. Highly recommended! Only two rooms and a few tanks in addition to touch tanks but the volunteers were excellent! Friendly and knowledgable.

A baby shark, born to a couple larger sharks in the aquarium.

Abalone