Tomi's 1st tandem flight at the Dump ...

Welcome Tomi, to the wonderfull world of flying ...
There was "some" fog today, but the flying plan went well :-) Tomi just couldn't stop smilling in the air and I even heard a pilot go and discuss with him afterward telling that they were crossing in the air and He looked so happy ! I took few images with my N95, unfortunately, in order to post them, I had to reduce the quality of the image.

Arnel, so many thanks for the tandem.



Looks like fun...

PS: Jaakko, I promise: We were not flying the same one :-)

A little sport in a sunny day

Finally the fog has cleared. Cecile now beleives me that the weather can be good in San Francisco. We thus decided to rent some bicycles in Fisherman's Warf and go all the way to Sausalito. Olivier, Claire and Denis know the way.



On the way we stopped to what the Kite surfing competition in Crissy Field. Those guys know how to jump.


Just as a proof, we made it to Sausalito.



But we needed some comfort... and found it in healthy diet.

Laurent et Cecile en Californie

This is Laurent but this is not Cecile :-)

Here they are. They arrived monday , already went all around the city and I am waiting for they to be back from Point Reyers, Russian river, Sonoma and Napa where they left yesterday. After few difficulties (Sorry for the private joke but when you see them you can ask about Los Angeles, Alcatraz, and the plan day by day :-) They are now up to speed and enjoying the trip !!! So nice to have you here fellows. You still have so much to see in the next few weeks. I look forward to hear your stories.

Cecile took some great pictures Here is one of Lombart street where dispite the fog the flowers are amazing!



A free coffee for the one who can name the different species. I need at least 3...

I forgot how I love this sport : Cool video links ...

I must say that if every now and then because of work, daily worries and other trouble of life, I forget how much I like this sport, a weekend like the one I spend takes care of reminding me: I just love this game! This is the most amazing combination of fun, skills, people and nature that I have found.
As Seal says in his song :

Oh babe... Oh darlin...
In a world full of people there's only some want to fly,
Isn't that crazy?
Ohh...
But we're never gonna survive unless, we get a little crazy.. crazy..

I already gave a link to that video a while ago. But since I think that it is one of the most inspiring video of paragliding I do it again: The top 3 pilots in the world, having fun, with a great music in "Dune du Pyla", close to Bordeaux




Also those two I just found on the net. They features the Dump site, Ed Levin and Hat Creek which are 3 of the sites I am flying the most in California.
Link to the video : Click Here

Arnel, Jeff : Seems that I recognized you on this one :-)
Link to the video : CLICK HERE

Expert pilots and beginners : so much fun in those images :-)
COME AND FLY WITH US !

Paragliding trekking in Hat Creek and Lassen Volcanic park

Finally a full weekend in California: No trips, no need to recover from jet lag !!! A lot of people are on holiday and I can leave the office early. Arnel picked me up at 12.00 and we go together to pick up Richard and Erik in Berkley: Lets make Paragliding weekend in Hat Creek. As you can see, Arnel has the perfect vehicle for a paragliding trip.



4 and a half hours later. We arrive in Hat Creek camp ground where a big cumulo-nimbus is collapsing above our heads. We have very little hope for an evening flight. We set up the camp and suddenly, the sun appears : We rush to the take off and ...



Yep... We can't be always lucky !

But we flew Saturday and Sunday during the glass off when the earth is rendering all the heat accumulated during the day. Sunday evening I flew 2h to watch the sunset and landing in the dark: We jumped in the car and were back in SF at 2am on Monday morning. A short night before work but great memories.

On Saturday, as the conditions during the day were too strong, we went for a short hike in Lassen park.



Here is a little video from the top of a perfect volcanic dome. The lava stream and the ashes dunes are just amazing and the video does not render the beauty of the site.



On the way back, we found so strange moon shapes, that my friend could not stop taking pictures !



Oh, you wanted to see some paragliding videos ... Ok. Here is one from Nova practicing "Helicopter" manoeuvre. Why is it called helicopter ? Just guess :-)

For the technical explanation, this is one of the very difficult manoeuvre: Starting with a "Full Stall" that is stabilized and then by moving one hand slowly upper than the other one, the wing starts rotation : A lot of cold blood and practice to do that .


Here is Nova with Jeff before the take off. It gives you an idea of the equipment needed to do such tricks.



On Sunday, as the day was really hot, we changed strategy. Instead of hiking, we went to some waterfalls to swim and cool down : Mission accomplished !



Tired but happy, this was really a great weekend which reminds me why I chose this life to live on the other side of the world far from friends and family. Some of those rare moments that makes me beleive that I do not always make the wrong choices.

Inserting videos ...

Today I realize that it was not that hard to insert videos in my blog : Sorry for you as I started to insert few of them. For the beginners, no worries : Just click on the image, turn the volume on and enjoy. Some of those videos are recent, some older. The paragliding video with myself in it is from few years back in Italy. Then there are 2 videos from last weekend in Pacifica: The Dump. This is the paragliding spot I go after work. It is 15 minutes from the office and is much more pretty now than when it used to be the place where all the trash from SF was stored there. Thus the name: The Dump.

Denis videos from his visit in SF

Denis visited SF with Olivier. It took me a while to post the video Denis sent me. My bad. But now it is here and you can enjoy it. SF is really an amazing place. It takes a while to come from Europe, but it is definitely worth it. For the one that did not recognize it, the second track on the video is from the series : "the Street of San Francisco" (In French "Les rues de San Francisco") with the young Michael Douglas.

Francoise Frank and Corentin

This is a compilation of the wedding and the baptism last year in south of France... I was learning to play with the video editor : the perfection of the topic compensates the bad editing skills :-)

Old video in Italy ..

Sorry,... now that I found how to insert videos, I can't stop :-)

This one is full of good memories with a lot of friend.. Unfortunately for them, they did not pick the right thermal that day and You can see them when camera looks down. Don't assume too much : Usually they are the one up and I look at them from the bottom. Michele, Viera, Frederik, Johan. I think you guys were all there. We had a great dinner at the landing in a tent offered by the locals : that was awesome as Americans would say !

FLying after work in Pacifica and Noa at launch