In the morning, Christophe asked his neighbour Philippe and his partner in their rally car business, Claude, to have a listen to Betty. First problem was that she wouldn’t start. The battery seemed to be having a tough time turning her over which wasn’t surprising after the attempts yesterday. They tried boosting her with Claude’s larger Ford transport van followed by a large battery from a boat that Philippe stores at Christophe’s place. Neither had the juice to succeed so the next option was to tow her behind Philippe’s big 4x4. As we cruised down the street, Christophe instructed me to pop the clutch and she came to life. Philippe had a listen and thought that it all sounded good, no permanent damage had been done. Hallelujah! I don’t have to replace the whole engine or just abandon Betty!
We brought her back into Christophe’s yard, stopped her and then tried again. She wouldn’t start. No biggie, I’m just back to square one after my oil foolishness the day before. Philippe’s hypothesis was that the batteries (the regular one and the leisure one) were in the wrong place and that was causing an overly long cable from the regular to the battery to lose too much of its juice en route to the starter. Claude thought it was something to do with the fuel pump. These guys were extremely friendly and helpful. Christophe offered to rewire the batteries tomorrow but he and Virginie insisted that I should go and fly at Dune de Pyla and Christophe would give me a ride...wow and double wow.
The experts checking out Betty:
Christophe and Virginie's house:
Christophe dropped me off at the trailhead to the dune. We agreed to meet back there at 6:15pm. He was going to return home where the whole family would try to get some sleep as poor little Sasha was teething the night before so none of them had slept well. Later they would head to the beach and then meet up with me.
Arriving at the beach I was stunned by the site of this amazing paragliding playground. I had seen pictures and videos of the place in the past but it was quite something to see. It’s a sand dune that is over a kilometer long and 400 meters high. There are some pine trees at one point where there is some camping (where I didn’t quite make it to yesterday). There must have been 15-20 wings in the air and the same number on the sand, either kiting (and being dragged around with bare feet, skiing through the sand) or struggling to inflate their wing in the strong wind.
Dune de Pyla:
I watched for a while, spoke to a woman at a tandem booth who was almost voiceless (I didn’t ask if it was due to a bug or excessive partying), and then went to set up. I played around kiting for a bit (as well as struggling a bit in the strong wind I’ll admit) and then took to the air. What a place! I hovered around just a foot or two above the sound, made large hops like I was on the moon, and then took off, up to 100 meters above the dune.
I flew for about two hours, hopped the treed point and then landed trying to make it back. I was getting a chilly from being in the air so I laid down on the fine sand and had a short snooze before attempting to takeoff from that area. It was a narrow area so there was a Venturi effect happening and after 10 minutes of attempts, I figured it was safer to walk back to the main area. I bundled up my wing in my arms and walked with my harness on. It was definitely further than I had expected (over a kilometer) so by the time I arrived, had a short break, I realized I didn’t have much time before I had to meet up with Christophe. I used the paraglider to pull me up part of the dune while kiting it and then packed her up in the woods and hiked back to the road. I can’t wait to get back here!
Christophe brought me to a beach where Virginie and Sasha were still hanging out. We then headed back to their place and following a conversation from last night, they prepared “Magret de Canard” (duck breast) for dinner as I have never tried it before. Well let me tell you, super delicious. We stayed up talking and having a few drinks until about 11pm. Christophe even introduced me to his “eau de vie”, essentially moonshine, which was obviously quite potent but not too bad tasting. What amazing hosts!
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