Santa Barbara Part 1 2023-05-21

A year has passed since I first learned to paraglide! Last May I took 2 weeks off of work to fly from Boston to Santa Barbara and live in a rental car while taking lessons with Eagle. While I was there, I made friends with Naasha, a visiting instructor from India. She was there for the summer in Santa Barbara, while the monsoons made flying impossible back home for her. We’ve stayed in touch since then, and she’s back to instruct this summer. I took a few days off of work and made a trip down to Santa Barbara to see her and do some flying.

I made it to the training hill on Sunday morning after deep cleaning my apartment and driving most of the way down the coast on Saturday. I met Naasha there, and we caught up on our past years. Thorin was there as well! We learned at the same time last year, and I keep bumping into him through flying. He’s now flying a ton now at Tollhouse, and he invited me to come out and fly there.

We spent the morning flying the training hill, which sat under a thick layer of clouds. Around 1pm, we heard word that VOR might be on, so we all piled in 2 cars (Along with Will, a recent P2) to scope out a mountain flight. When we arrived on launch, the LZ was obscured by that same thick layer of clouds, with the northern edge pulsing forward and receding just enough to make a flight look possible if we waited. Cycles passed through, bringing the wind in a favorable direction, but the prevailing wind seemed to be primarily from the north. We sat on launch for an hour or so before deciding to call it and drive back down. The cloud layer cleared, but it seemed it was due mostly to the winds from the north. The possibility of rotor down the south side was enough to make the flight a no-go.

After bailing on the mountain flight, we headed over to More Mesa, where we caught the end of what was probably a good day at the coast. I launched and was just able to stay up- after a few laps, I top landed, took off again, and ended up landing on the beach. Thankfully the tide was out, and I was able to put the glider down safely.

Monday, we spent the whole day flying the training hill. In the afternoon, the site turned quite thermic. The clouds burned off, and there wasn’t enough wind off of the coast to disrupt the small thermals. Swifts were out in full force catching the rising bugs, and there were hawks that would circle far above here and there. Naasha was able to catch a thermal and top land twice! I managed a single circle in some moderate lift, but promptly fell out of the lift in the second half and didn’t have the ground clearance to try again. I ended up primarily practicing side hill landings and doing a lot of hiking. With the recent rains, the training hill is now completely covered in knee-height grasses and brush. With all of my tromping around, I ended up covered head to toe in pollen, and proceeded to spend the rest of the day drowning in allergies.

Naasha was kind enough to let me use her shower after flying, which made a world of a difference, but I was still a wheezing mess the rest of the day. I spent a little while hanging out with her at the Eagle shop while she inspected a glider and packed up shipments for the shop. I tried my hand at playing Down in the Valley, but it was almost comical when I tried to sing.

I scoped out the UCSB library as a hang-out spot, but stumbled upon graduation celebrations in full swing and bailed. The visitor parking lot was completely filled, and I was stuck in campus traffic for nearly 20 minutes just driving in and out.

I ended up back up on Camino Cielo (What a name for a road!). The marine layer had settled back in, blanketing the ocean and the land all the way up to the edges of the mountains in a soft, puffy white. I spent a while marveling at the clouds before addressing the much less magnificent sight of my car by spending some time cleaning. After the sun set, I drove down to cell service to talk with Maggie, then drove back up in the dark and called it early.