It's rough getting out of the field. I'm constantly moving my butt from side to side as Rhett powers through the turbulence. It smoothes out a bit over 700' AGL, and we get into some lift upwind at 1,800' where I pin off. The wind is 13 mph out of the northwest and the lift choppy, but it's not a problem to hang on and drift quickly to the east.

I hook up with Jeff after he gets towed up and we climb to almost cloud base over 5,000'.

Jeff O'Brien says, "ooh" when he sees this:

It's someone flying a super sleek harness.

There is a line of clouds to the north just east of highway 33 coming out of Mascote. Our task decided on earlier was to go north to the turnpoint at the Turnpike and highway 33. Sure we have to fight into the cross wind but that's where the clouds are.

As we get up to highway 50 west of Groveland, we are finding lift under small cu's. There is a big cu to the west over the nursery and cu's to the north, but none to the northwest.  We are heading west to go upwind and get to the big dark cu. The sink increases from 170 fpm to 790 fpm. I decide that this is not good and turn 90 degrees to the north (the direction we want to go anyway) and head toward the next cloud street.

Jeff keeps going toward the cu and lands. Down to 1,700' AGL I find lift under the next cu's. Without a play mate, I get high and head back to Quest to go pick him up if no one else comes along.

http://hang6.blogspot.com/2009/04/somebodys-gotta-suck-flying-42109.html

The air is rough and the cu's are disappearing to the west. Soon the cu's are cleared out by the west sea breeze.

A pack of French Canadian pilots had come up from south of Quest hoping to get into the air when they weren't able to do so where they were camping. It was a bit windy, as I said, but less than it had been over the last week. All but one of them had good tows with one pilot having two weaklink breaks.