Goa Fly Boy

November 30th, 2010

The winds have finally picked up so I marched up to launch to see if today would be the day that I would fly for more than two minutes...and sure enough it was. I ended up spending 2 hours in the air and actually chose to come down and land. For the first half of the flight I was stuck on the small ridge on the south side of Keri beach (which is where I’ve always launched from). The wind was from the northwest so it was running parallel to the next ridge, on the other side of the little lagoon known as Sweet Lake, so I wasn’t going to find any ridge lift if I headed over there. Luckily I had the small ridge to myself, well, with the occasional eagle joining in. There were a couple of paragliders on the longer ridge further north so it seemed to be working over there too.

Someone taking off:

Parawaiting like a pro:

The wind straightened out, turning to the west so I decided to go for the little crossing and made it over there without losing much height. I then joined up with 12 other paragliders who were floating around along the length of the ridge. It was a bit of traffic for the relatively small site but it wasn’t too bad. I snapped some pics and after a couple of hours of boating around I decided (with my bladder being the most vocal member) to head down and land on Keri Beach. There were three Israeli travelers (Zohar, Avishai & Noa) whom I met at the Olive Garden previously hanging out at the beach. They had waved to me while I was in the air but unfortunately I missed it. I enjoyed a post flight beer before we wandered back to the headquarters (the Olive Garden).

Looking down at Keri Beach:

Looking down on the takeoff:

In flight:

A happy flier:

Many wings in the air:

The temple:

That evening the Israelis were interested in eating steak so they invited me to tag along to a restaurant called Double Dutch. As you can imagine in a country where the cow is a sacred animal that it isn’t always easy to find a place that serves steak...probably even less likely to find good and well prepared steak. As we entered the courtyard of the restaurant, one of my companions said “Namaste” to the wait staff (a greeting pronounced “na-ma-stay”). Jokingly someone said “No-ma-steak”...unfortunately it proved to be correct, the place had sold out. We decided to stay regardless.

A statue at the entrance to the restaurant:

Avi and Noa:

Avi pointed out that there was an entree, the Dutch Mash, which was “potatoes, vegetables and meatball”. He humorously asked whether we thought that it would actually be just one meatball. He asked the waiter and sure enough, you get one large meatball!

Zohar and me:

After dinner we wandered back towards the Garden and stopped at a recently opened bar/restaurant with huts called Woodstock. There were about a dozen people sitting on the ground with cushions around some large, low rectangular tables. The place had a bit of a hippie feel to it and the owner, Avid, was very welcoming. Zohar, Noa and I joined the non-musical table, not necessarily due to our lack of musical talent but there was no space at the other table. There were acoustical guitars, including a bass, some drums and even a little flute appeared briefly. At one point I felt proud to be a Canadian as they played Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and a song by Neil Young. It was a pretty chilled atmosphere and it was nice to relax and enjoy the music...a nice way to finish a day.

The jam session:

Noa and Tal enjoying the music:

Crazy Noa:

Zohar and Noa:

Tal trying to hide her identity while eating a dense chocolate ball: