Flight

First really good day of the week in Algodonales - the TV full of pictures of snow in Northern Spain. Lots of pilots on take off planning to fly to Ronda, about 25K away. I spent 3/4 of an hour bimbling about take off, taking pictures, thermalling away with the Griffon vultures,  dodging cloud suck, learning about the site (Lijar Poniente, above the town of Algodonales). I found myself going over the back in a roughish thermal, but only 1-2 up on the averager. Still, the filthy black cloud above launch promised a guarantee of getting to base. This was duly delivered, about 1800 above take off. Glided off, still going up, so used the ears to dampen the lift, until I popped out into the clear again. Glided off to the 'twin peaks' for the next thermal. The obvious place as on the sunny slope into wind, under the left hand summit. A bit of bar, and the thermal appeared exactly where expected. Nice! This took me back up to base in a 5-up. More fuzziness ensued in the white room, before gliding on to the next peak. This proved less fruitful and I ended up following some Griffons, but they stopped thermalling as soon as I reached them, the b***ds. I tried soaring the rock face, into sun, but no luck, so I dived off into the lee. Oops! A gully lined with trees, facing the sun seemed a likely source of thermals. I later learned that it was the strongest thermal source in the region. I believe it. I got hit by rocket thermals several times, and had more collapses in that one thermal than in my previous 15 years flying combined. I fled from the scene, only to find more strong lift. So I turned around, and got thrashed again. This happened 4 times before I was able to turn without getting a collapse. This went to base, and and entry into the white room for the third time. The roughing up had my GPS unit upside down, and my camera now recording in black and white only. Another glide, and another thermal source later saw me in a rough thermal, with a glide to Ronda now on the car