Flight

Got to Caburn at 7.45, started walking the gliders up and Vincent the legend grabbed my harness and basebar which probably weighs more than his whole pg kit!!! Steve Marnier turned up shortly after and we lugged all of our kit to the top. Rigged and ready to go by 10am, the sky was blue above with good clouds inland. I was already worried that the sea air had come in. I launched onto a windy but fairly scratchy ridge and soared for about 20minutes until a few scrappy thermals came through, then Steve launched and we got into a good climb to about 2000ft, pushed forward to Vincent and John climbing in front of the ridge and took that climb to base at 3200. it was the only cloud in a very blue sky, we drifted over the back for a km or more staying with the cloud until we were well past sinky glydebourne. Steve then went crosswind for a couple of forming clouds and i went on a sinky glide towards heathfield. I found some zeros when i was down to about 1800ft asl and stuck with it. it was still very early and the day hadn't started to work properly so i knew one small wrong decision and i would be kicking myself on the ground. I stayed with any weak climb until i got to the clouds beyond heathfield and the rest was extremely easy, strong climbs, high base and fast glides. the air was quite rough at times and weak thermals seemed to be a bit torn apart by the wind, but i didnt need to stop for those so i was ok. I had declared North foreland golf club at 6am that morning as the airspace had been removed but when i got to the hill steve had me doubting myslef about the airspace, so i decided to fly over the top of manston as if it was still active. i landed before 1pm for 113 km in the North foreland golf club with lots of golfers who took lots of photos, it was  right next to a pub (Captain Digbys) for fish, chips and a pint. Just as i finished eating the Golden Retriever turned up with the car. Awesome flight and back home already to celebrate with the champagne.