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The forecast was for ten to fifteen mph winds out of the southeast. There were
plenty of cu's early, so Jochen and I were ready to go and I got pulled up at
11:20 AM. The sky cover was over 90% and the lift weak. It was so much fun to
fly in this air with no turbulence, despite the reasonably strong winds. But the
lift was too weak. After half an hour Jochen and I landed back at Quest Air
after a very fun flight.

Jamie Shelden was having her car fixed so she thought that she couldn't make it
out in time.

So we waited two hours for the lift to improve. There were plenty of cu's and
lots of vertical development. It looked like it might OD. The forecast was for a
lot of instability and a twenty percent chance of rain.

As we headed out to launch we could hear Mike Barber and Tom Lanning on the
radio. They had launched at 12:40 from Wallaby Ranch and were at about highway
474 although they found the lift to be weak, halfway to Quest Air. I got pulled
up to 2,500' at 1:30 and headed east to find the lift and got right to cloud
base at 3,700'. I had to wait for Jochen and stayed out of the clouds. Mike was
low below me and Tom was landing at Quest Air.

I went away from the clouds to stay out of them and wait and then came back to find Mike and Jochen climbing
fast further to the west. I joined them and we headed out to the northwest. We
were all talking to each other over the radio to coordinate our plans.

There were dark cu's and plenty of lift almost every where. It wasn't
particularly strong lift but we really only had about a thousand feet to play
with any way. Down to 3,000' back to 4,000'. We headed northwest up the Turnpike
toward I 75. Mike was out in front with Jochen behind. Tom landed back on
highway 33 and the Turnpike.

With a thirteen mph tail wind I was seeing speeds of almost 60 mph over the
ground. I just pulled the bar in and didn't worry about going down. Mike and I
stopped just south of Wildwood for some lift.  Mike got ahead of me to the
north and I had to find some lighter lift at 2,100'. Jochen came in under me
after being left behind and we climbed a little before he headed west to a good
looking cloud. I followed above him and he found great lift and we zoomed to
cloud base.

Mike missed that lift and got low ahead of us as we headed northwest. I had to
take the lead to be sure that Jochen knew how to get around the various
obstacles ahead, although we really needed to pay more attention to the clouds
than to the ground. But a new airspace at Ocala (only 1,500' high) was coming up
on us.

We could see Mike and Mitch just behind and below us as we continually found
reasonable lift and stayed high. I kept pushing and leading us to the west to get around the
airspace.

Our goal was the Williston airfield, 109 km from Quest Air, not a big task, but
gentle on Belinda. If we had gotten away at 11:20 maybe we would have gone for a
bigger task, say two hundred miles, but with a late start that didn't seem
reasonable.

Jochen climbed more in a thermal that I left getting closer to the cloud. I had
been leaving most thermals at cloud base as the lift continued strong right to
cloud base, but I kept having to dive through the mist with the bar stuffed.

Jochen came in over me about thirty kilometers from the goal as I climbed out
and just kept going as he was high. I climbed to cloudbase in 400 fpm and took
off behind him. We spent the next fifteen kilometers at best glide as our flight
instruments said that we had goal made but just barely. We were getting about
25:1 and the goal was 21:1.

Fifteen kilometers out we finally found lift strong enough to thermal in. We
still had positive numbers, but not extra altitude just in case. It was easy to
dive into goal at the airfield from there.

This is the easiest flight I've had from Quest Air to Williston. Only got down a
little once. The fifteen kilometer glide was great. The air conditions were
fantastic with very few rude bumps. Just nice friendly lift.

As we packed up we saw the sea breeze come in gently. It would have created a
great convergence line. Mitch Shipley was not on our task to stop at Williston,
so he could have still been in the air. He flew 110 miles.