Flight

Windy Rybury. Spent an hour ridge soaring and making crop circles waiting for a sustained band of sunlight. 

Finally got a climb as a big black bottomed cloud drifted by. More wind near ground level than near clouds, so thermals were broken at the bottom and easier up high, although there wasn't much drift to make distance, maybe 15km NW. Clumps and big blocks of cloud shaded big sections so I hopped around from cloud to cloud trying to avoid the holes and to negotiate the tricky corridor of airspace, which seemed to have clouds parking in the prohibited bits.  

Got very low at Ropley Soke after flying ahead of the last cumulus clouds into stable air (I wasn't going to sit there under a cloud going 15km/h the whole day). From far out I could see smoke from a field fire, which provided scrappy fun back up to base (ooh, a fire thermal, ban him, ban him ;-) 

Then flying became very slow, with weak climbs and a lot of shade from spreadout to the south. I worked my way to the South Downs ridge, but mostly used the fields just inland of the ridge which had better heating potential. Got another low save at Bignor which felt like the sea air was jostling in underneath me. So when I topped out over Amberley I went inland instead of straight-lining to Steyning/Truleigh, where the air was clear/dead. There were scraggly tails and little whisps forming over Storrington, and a big block of cumulus. As I sank down I had to head ever more inland to try reach the seabreeze convergence, which was somewhere near the 2500 airspace line, I think. I got a few broken half-thermals, it felt like somewhere close by stuff was going up but I didn't manage to find it in time. Dropped into a low layer of strong SW seabreeze (30km/h+) just before landing, had to use speedbar to get to safe fields. Then just before landing, the wind died away. The seabreeze retreated again while I walked in to Ashington.

My first UK 100! The first bus stop I came across had a bus arriving in 5 minute