The thermals turned out later to be the very smoothest we've had
so far this year

Larry came up with a crazy task again, so I brought him to the computer in the
Oz Report World Headquarters here at Quest Air where we had a better look at the
weather (10 mph out of the east and maybe some cu's later in the day at 6,000')
and we called a 100 km out and return to the north to the former grass airstrip
at Dallas on the northwest corner of the Villages. The sky was blue and the wind
was strong, so we were not in a great hurry to get going.

Finally after 1:30 PM there were cu's mostly to our east as forecasted by
BLIPMAPS RAP. Also a few cu's in our area so we trudged on down to the west slot
launch to give it a go. The cu's nearby were ragged as could be. Mark pulled up
Olaf and we saw him struggling to our northeast.

Larry was hot to trot unlike James Stinnett, Greg Dinauer, ten other pilots and
I. Mark had to tow him to 3,400' before hitting any lift, although there was
plenty of turbulence at tree height.

We waited while Larry found lift and got up asking why we weren't in the air
yet. It took another hour before the cu's looked good enough for us to get
going.

We had to wait some more as other pilots were willing to go an then I had to
wait a bit more as we changed the launch direction to the south east. Larry was
waiting for everyone else 30 kilometers to the north.

James and Greg headed north but it was too late for me by the time I made a low
save over the swamp east of Quest Air, right smack dab over the water. Nice cu
above me, which was why I was willing to go out over the swamp.

That thermal progressively got stronger and when I got over 4,000' there was Tom
Lanning in is new Wills Wing T2C 136. No mistaking his under surface design
(unless it was Owen Morse from The Passing Zone). The thermal was smooth and we
were climbing at 700 fpm as we got over 6,000'. I had an additional layer of
clothes on so I was relaxed and happy.

I figured Tom was heading back to Wallaby Ranch and headed out east southeast
upwind (14 mph) to get to the fat cu's south of Groveland by highway 27. Neither
Tom or I found anything out there and were soon back at Quest Air and soon in
another very nice thermal going back up.

Meanwhile James was chasing Larry up north past the Turnpike and Greg was up
there also but decided that he didn't want to go to Dallas. There were no clouds
north of the Turnpike, but plenty of them here and to our east.

The air felt just perfect and I was feeing out the new glider making an effort
to not make an effort. My focus was on relaxing (which was easier in the nice
air without a task to speed through) and to feel how the muscles in my shoulders
were working or not working. My "good" shoulder (the on that hasn't been
operated on) had been getting a bit too sore lately, so I wanted to be sure to
not do any movements that I didn't need to make.

The idea was to quit wrestling with the glider , letting it bounce around, and
just doing weight shifting as needed. It was great to focus on a different
aspect of flying and how my body was interacting with the glider.

Larry and James were struggling against the headwind while Greg made it back to
Quest and was flying around near me. Finally James landed just south of the
Villages and north of the Turnpike. Larry stayed in the air until almost 7 PM
landing only three miles due west of Quest Air.

The field was very sweet as I landed around 6 PM with a 14 mph east wind. This
is the best day so far this year even with the east wind. More tomorrow, but on
Wednesday it looks like a great day for flying to the north to Georgia.