After starting my paragliding journey near the end of 2007, I had a very long break from May of 2008. My hopes of ending this at Yelagiri in June of this year saw me hone my parawaiting skills for both the weekends that I was there :)
It was not with a small amount of trepidation that I landed in Bali - not completely sure if I would be able to get good flying weather - but the Gods were kind!
Spent four days at Timbis. Met Ketut and started off day one with some kiting after which I went up for an instructional tandem - I was nervous about going solo as I had not had a flight for over one year AND also did not have any flying experience worth the name to back up this long absence.
Take off is 75 MSL facing south. From near the temple, the take off does not afford a beach landing - which the main take off (Timbis) does. The SE winds were smooth and gentle - 18/20 early in the afternoon building up slowly to around 22/24 later in the afternoon except for one day when the late afternoon winds picked up to 26/28 with some gusts and buffeting above 110MSL. The max height I attained was 192 MSL - at least that was the highest that I noticed :)From the moment I launched for my first flight - the feeling was just exhilaration to be in the air again :) In the four days, I enjoyed lovely clear weather everyday, clocking 7 Hours and 10 flights - with the longest flight of over 90 minutes. This was a wonderful opportunity for me to start getting used to reverse inflation and crabbing in making the approach for the top landings.
On day three, the winds picked up to be a little strong for my comfort and while the resultant increase in the lift band was extremely exciting, landing was fairly nerve racking experience. As I approached the landing from the SW as normal, because of the strong lift, I was too high by the time I turned into the wind over the LZ. Attempting to move out to make the approach again, realized that I was not getting any penetration and that is when I had to use the speed bar - which again, was a first for me :)
After three aborted attempts, got the math right and made a shorter and lower approach to come in for landing.
The view from the sky is breathtaking and even though at times I did feel it was a little overcrowded, the flying was wonderful!
Managed to take some pictures - as I said earlier - not good enough yet to both fly and take good pictures :) Some more pictures here.
Borrowing heavily from Arabind, it's true one is not allowed to fly over the temples, but, the flying is magical nonetheless :)
Cheers,
Nasser
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