by Morgan » Sat May 23, 2009 2:26 am
Well, I made it down to Torrey Pines late yesterday 10 minutes before they closed and got two hour long flights in the smooth air of the glass off. As I was packing up my wing to leave, I heard an unmistakable voice say "Booty." It brought images of the Bates launch and the training hill...I knew who it was before I turned my head. My buddy, Spring Shoe Dave. The guy who's picked me up form the beach at Bates more times than I can count. The guy who always says "yeah, go for it" I'll pick you up if you bomb out. It'll be entertaining to watch." The guy who's given me some some of his most precious pears of wisdom. So we talked for a minute and promised to meet back there the next day.
The next day I demoed a large Rush 2 and took a prep flight to see how the wing handled before I took Booty up. It was sweet. I fly a medium Rush. I got to the top of the lift band quickly. It handled nicely.
I landed, which is really fun there...that little j-hook you do right before you slam into the ground. The death spiral for dummies, I call it. Then I hooked booty up and we had an awesome flight. It was the first time we didn't just do a sledder. This was the real reason I wanted to go down there, to take a long flight with Booty. I just needed a larger wing to feel comfortable with his added weight. He settled in quickly. We bobbed up and down north of launch. Then the wind kicked up a little and we got another hundred feet or so and Booty happened to be positioned so he was looking out over the water and I guess it got a little high for him cause he tried to bury his head in my harness. He was finally scared so we landed.
Anyway, had fun on my own wing trying some of the things over the ocean that I learned in the SIV clinic. Experimented how deep I could go in my brakes, and actually, when Dave and I were flying to the pier to the south and he was ahead of me, I tried full speed bar for the first time. I caught right up with him.
Another flight on the large Rush and it was on to the Addict 2. It was a lot of fun, but still in the future for me.
After that I surfed at sunset with my brother and Jackson had a nice little barbecue and came home. So that's my day and a quarter down there. Sorry If I forgot to call you. It was a little slice of heaven and back to work.