Flight

It looked more like a weekend than a Wednesday, as the Dyke was full as I arrived. Nice conditions to start off, with decent height gains. The first really good thermal saw far too many of us going over the back, with about 10 of us in a bubble about 2 gliders high, al with defferent ideas about how to thermal. After 2,0000 feet of this, I finally broke clear, grabbed a decent core, and climbed out. Several were below me now, starting to spread out. The climb went to zeros, and seeing Craig A doing Ok behind me now, went over to join him, and eventually climb to base at about 4300 somewhere over ASDA. No shopping trip today! A glide under the clouds went quite well, and then got another climb at the university to top up. Then it was a glide over Kingston to watch the hangies aerotowing again. This all turned to zeros, and light down, until half a billion seagulls marked a core coming out of the refuse tip. Went over reluctantly, to join their smelly thermal, which turned to a nice 3-up. Then it all went horribly wroing - I glided over the Firle ridge, and should have gone to the soouth of it, but went north instaed, in the sink form hell, adn landed out at the Alfriston roundabout on the A27, for 27K. I was packig the glider up when Martin Forss aka 'Bushy' turned up and offered me a lift back to the Dyke. Result! He got his reward when he went tandem with Hairy Dave, and flew most of the way back...
After that, the wind picked up, and it wasn't working quite so well, though one or two got away. In the end, I'd had 5 hours flying, the most I've ever had a day.