When I awoke and walked out of the big green canvas tent I was gobsmacked by the gorgeous view that awaited me as I had arrived in the dark last night. Wow, there’s a big lake down there (albeit a manmade one) with mountain ridges running in multiple directions. It reminded me a bit of the southern Okanagan area of British Columbia in Canada. It was early in the morning and the visibility was very clear. Can’t wait to get in the air here!
The gorgeous vista from camp:
Andre came by and offered to take anyone interested to check out a couple of the takeoffs to see if it was flyable and Max, Gilles and I took him up on the offer. The first takeoff was a little over a kilometre to the north and was facing in the same direction as our campsite. It was small but definitely functional but would typically be used in the afternoon once the sun had moved across the sky and had a chance to bake the west facing ridge face. Next we went to an east facing launch that was close by and there were some tandem wings in the air already. We watched with amusement as one came in to top land in an unconventional manner yet the pilot and passenger did arrive safely even if they skidded along the ground on their butts for about ten feet. We decided that we would wait until later in the afternoon for better conditions so we returned to camp.
My tent and the "dining room":
The other tents:
Max, Gilles, Olivier and I returned to the first launch after 4pm and the westerly sun powered wind was coming in strong. We prepared our gear on a flat bit of dusty ground just behind and off to one side of the small takeoff area and then one by one moved down to take to the air. Max and Olivier were off first, followed by Gilles and then yours truly. Gilles was picked up while he was still facing backwards and did a fantastic job of controlling the wing as he was turned around, dropped back down on his butt, skidded a bit and then took to the air. I spread my wing out and then waited for a lull in the wind as it was quite strong. Thankfully a tandem pilot and his entourage showed up and I asked him to anchor me to take off. I took a few attempts but eventually was off...awesome, a new flying site!
I flew rather sedately for most of the flight, throwing in the odd wingover and spiral here and there but noticed that I definitely wasn’t in the same calibre as the other three pilots. Part of my tentativeness was that I hadn’t flown at a thermal site since last September in Europe (since then I’ve only been ridge soaring in Goa) and the other factor was that if you sink too far below the ridge and have to land down below the ridge, it’s at least an hour and a half trek back (hitchhiking or catching a bus) around the promontory to a town called Wai (pronounced “why”) to one of the few roads back up to Panchgani. With the sun setting soon, I didn’t like that prospect on my first flying day here.
Looking at the Eco Camp from the air (look for the 5-6 tiny green dots in the middle of the photo...at least there's no worries of someone moving in next door and ruining the view!):
Along the ridge:
The standard (and seemingly mandatory) foot shot:
Nice views:
The three guys flying back past me, but far below:
Looking down at Olivier (he's a tiny speck up from my feet):
We flew until after sunset and then I headed towards the landing zone which was a kilometre or so north of the takeoff on the same ridge. It was a fairly large field with a stone fence running along the back and one side of it and then dropping off on the south and west sides. Andre had suggested that you set up your approach running back and forth along the back wall and then come in to land. As I was doing just that, there was a tandem wing in front of me that looked to be setting up to land too so I kept my eye on him...but he was at least 30 meters in front of me. Suddenly I noticed a second tandem flying towards me on a parallel path that was maybe 10 meters in front...uh oh, this could be interesting.
Sunset from the air:
I was mainly concerned with catching rotor (turbulence) from the closer tandem as we both tracked back towards the corner of the stone wall. He turned in to land first while I ventured a little further along to the corner before turning in to run parallel to the other leg of the wall. All of a sudden I lost my lift from about 15 feet up and began to fall backwards towards the ground...damn! I hit into the ground which was mostly hard packed, dead grass but was punctuated by the odd cluster of basketball sized volcanic rocks. The impact was mostly absorbed by the airbag of my harness but I hit a few rocks with the right side of my body.
The landing zone:
I waited a couple of seconds before getting up, knowing that I had incurred at least a few bruises. Gilles and Andre were about 20 meters away and yelled to see if I was okay. I replied affirmatively and slowly stood up, checking for damage. My right elbow took the brunt of it as I could feel some blood sticking to the inside of my fleece sweater. I pulled up my sleeve and although it was bloody, it didn’t look to bad so I put the sleeve back down and went about the business of packing up my wing in the fading daylight.
Not my best landing:
Returning to camp I went to an outdoor sink attached to the end of one of the bathroom buildings to wash up my wound and then noticed that I had a small, but nice chunk of my elbow taken out and thought that it should receive one or two stitches to have it properly heal. I showed it to English Dave and Natalie who were preparing supper in the outdoor kitchen and they concurred that it might need medical treatment and the prudent thing would be to see what Andre thought.
I walked up to Andre’s house and he pulled out a first aid kit to clean it up but after about five minutes he suggested that we pop over to the local doctor and let him have a look at it. We jumped on his motorbike and in a couple of minutes were at the doctor’s office which also had a small pharmacy in it. The doctor was just arriving back from dinner but within ten minutes he was examining my elbow. Yup, it needed a stitch or two. He was also concerned that I might have damaged the periosteum, the membrane that covers the outer part of the bone, so he suggested I get an X-ray and due to a high metallic content in the dirt in the area, he gave me a tetanus shot as a precaution. I thought I was going to have to go somewhere else in the morning for the X-ray but then he said he’d check if his brother was around...I guess it was his X-ray machine! Turns out it was just next door. How handy!
The somewhat ancient looking machine was in a rectangular, pinkish painted room which included some old office chairs and a mountain bike leaning up against the wall...a little different than I’m used to in Canada but hey, whatever works. Thankfully my elbow was fine so I was bandaged up. He prescribed some anti-inflammatories and antibiotics. My bill for all of this treatment was a whopping 680 rupees ($15) and I was out the door only thirty minutes after entering...pretty damn good!
I walked back to camp and everyone was just sitting down to a lovely dinner and they served me up a plate...sweet. Hopefully my next landing at Panchgani will be a bit better.
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