Tullio was high at this point, and I was low, but climbing slowly.

Tullio wanted to get some shots of flying over the trees on today's flight
around the Green Swamp. So I took him west from Quest right over the Green Swamp
for 20 kilometers.

He wasn't quite sure about it but I told him that we just had to have fields to
the north that we could bale out to if we got low.

There were cu's over the Green Swamp so we headed for them and worked the lift
that we found being cautious and getting as high as possible. Half way across we
found good lift at 300 fpm back to 4,700' over the north south highway 471.
There were fields nearby.

Four kilometers later we were down to 2,800' and found 125 fpm just west of the
last landable field. I only climbed to 3,700'. Tullio was a little higher. I
headed west toward some small cu's. I didn't think that I could make it to the
other side of the swamp without some lift. I was heading into a 8 mph head wind.

Half way across and down to 2,200' I found 100 fpm under a tiny cu. I got a
chance to look back. I had made a rule that I would turn around if I got down to
2,000' and go back to the last landable field, but I saw that there was no way
that I could make it back now.

But I looked near me and saw some areas in the swamp without trees. Looked like
I could land there if needed:

I had flown over this area a few times before so that I had checked out these
possible emergency landing areas previously so I wasn't wandering cluelessly out
over the swamp.

This was where Tullio got the shot from above that you see at the start of this
article.

Climbing to 3,600' I was able to make it over to the west side of the swamp and
down to 1,500' got under a good looking cu and climbed at over 300 fpm to
4,300'.

Looked to the west and the sky was beginning to clear a bit, perhaps from a sea
breeze, so I decided to cut the corner a bit and head south with Tullio. We had
plenty of good looking cu's ahead.

Lots of broken weak lift without solid cores until by the landfill, which always
produces, I climbed to 5,400'. This is a great spot to get high as there are
plenty of trees ahead going to the intersection of highway 471 and 98. There was
a good looking cu right over the intersection also.

I had lost track of Tullio as the radios weren't communicating. I headed east to
the intersection of Deen Still and Rockridge roads and found at the eastern edge
of the Green Swamp 290 fpm from 2,200' to 4,900'. Great fun going over the trees
getting low and hoping that you'll make it to the edge of the forest with enough
altitude to get back up.

I headed northeast toward some small cu's but not finding anything turned back
to the east to a better looking cu. Looking up there was Tullio higher back to
the east on the eastern edge of the cloud. I came in under it but found very
little lift.

Tullio headed out over the Green Swamp while I headed further east to the
eastern edge. Soon I recognized the spot where a few weeks earlier I had climbed
up from 800'. This time I found 170 fpm from 1,800' and climbed back to 3,400'.
I just could not get back to cloudbase. I had not been there in a while.

The few cu's ahead didn't produce (or I didn't find it) and I landed at the
Seminole Glider Port, which was closed on Monday so I didn't disturb any
operations. Tullio made it back going to the better lift over the Green Swamp.

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/para/flightinfo.html?flightId=-538229833

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/para/getScoring.html?scoringId=319

http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/1410157

http://wxc.fai.org/module.php?id=22&l=en&date=20160324&contest=INT&gliderclass=hg1

http://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:davisstraub/23.5.2016/16:34

http://www.xcontest.org/world/en/ranking-hg-open/