Typical good July day, small Cu's with CB at around 1600m, rough in the mountains and cool in the plains; visibility pretty poor, maybe 2km. Out yesterday, 2.30 TO. Heavy... up fast 4up with Panino over at East end of Sasso, then out for a cloud over Cittiglio - no dice, head for Nudo summit, and hit a whale of a thermal and climb up with Andrea Crash to 1550m, nearly CB. Head out back over Cittiglio and Gemonio but again it's not working well and take refuge back on Sasso. After a few climbs off to Gemonio again - that's were the clouds are - and hit zero, but I'm committed now and the only escape is Picutz. Get down to 850 before it picks up, and climb out to 1600m.

From here the road is clear and I head for Cardana, going over at 1200 and now it's bouyant: head over to Monvalle and climb up 350m to about 1375m, head for Bogno. Small four seater aeroplane goes under me about 200m below as I thermal up; I'm in the aerobatics box so for a moment I thought he was going start his show but instead he heads over to the other side of the lake.

Decide I can't get further without risking landing out, so I head back. Make it to Sasso easily (well, 600m) and climb out to 1550m again, head off this time for Reno and the lake. Float around, pick the buoyant air, testing the glide (seems to glide badly with VG 2/3rds on, but great with full on) and checking out the swimming pools a km below.

Back to the club were I get setup a bit wrong, enter too low and have to slalom some trees to get into the LZ... not good, but the landing itself fine, run a bit but easy enough. 2h20mins, 25km trig again, but who cares...

4:46:55 PM    

6th July looks good and Dave and I go off for what should be a good one. TO a bit late (3ish) though in retrospect probably wasn't a bad thing - it's getting warm here, and the thermals last well into the evening now. It's rock and roll in the early afternoon.

I'm off into good lift and swoop take off for the grockels' videos. Cross to the Brusciatta lowish, and then track round at ridge height to Nudo summit (as Erik says, why bother climbing first when it's like this?). Up in rough 3up to 1600m but there's a big cloud built up SW of the summit, so I leave to move out to work the lift under it: that's smoother and at 2150 leave for Pian, there's no cloud over San Martino and anyway I'm high.

There's a sailplane 2km to the NNE of Pian working the wispy cloud, I join him on the inside at 1850 (about 100m below him) and try to keep the angular velocity equal; but he's badly centred and in the end I go tighter and climb through. At 2100m I leave, still below CB but I'm high enough for Sette Termine, I'm 2km of the 6km crossing anyway. I head for another cloud about 1km W of Sette Termine, I'm not sure it's going to work because at Lema a Cumulus Congestus has just blasted off with a clear NW behind it (I'm arriving from the South), and to the West it's seems to be blowing East but there are no clouds over Sette Termine...

I get under the cloud, a bit relieved, and it's working. Ironically, I'm looking 2km down into the valley below for landing spots... Anxiety attack? You bet. What to do? I've just completed a 15:1 glide across the valley and arrived at a working cloud at 1850m, I'll take the cloud to 2300m... what am I worried about?

My stomach. Yes, I'm feeling cold, sick, and I can't concentrate. I can't work out which way to fly, Sette Termine summit? Or Lema, more than 8km away? Eventually I force myself to leave north, but after a km I turn back (seeing a sailplane scratching at Lema didn't help, but in fact the cumulus capping Lema to Tamaro looked quite threatening... I literally didn't have the stomach for it).

My anxiety driven search for landing field is revealed as just that when I arrive back at San Martino at 1700m (enough to glide from Sette Termine back to the club without turning, therefore). I abandon a rough 2up at Colonna and cross to Nudo, and get a 4up to 1800m. I spot Dave above me (on his dual, alone) heading for Campo so go after him, but he's just playing around and here there's a stiff southerly, so I also quit half way after I find that I'm not making the required 10:1 glide. Back to Nudo and I get low at the Brusciatta (900m) before I pick up a thermal halfway to Sasso and climb out to 1650; I head off to Cardana, following a line that seems to work and get down below 1000m but get a nice thermal over my house. At 1350m, head off SE towards Besozzo, get over Craig's house (he's already back and sees me :-) before drifing back to the club and landing.

It turns out to be a 36km triangle, over two hours in the air. But I'm annoyed I feel sick again; must be taking the drugs too late. And my enjoyment and concentration in the first hour is killed by that.

12:37:16 PM