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Dean Stratton
Monday 11/21/05
Alternator to Training Hill

Weather looked good enough on paper this morning to haul myself back out to SB.  On board were Bob H.. Bo, Andy, Kevin M., Dennis, Irene, Chip H., Shad, Gary and me.  Very light cycles and glass out on the ocean had us scratching our heads at Alternator until a few launched and started climbing in some of the smoothest, nicest thermals I've experienced in a long time.  You could've put your glider on auto-pilot and had lunch in flight it was so smooth.  I got over 5k at launch and went on glide to La Cumbre only losing 200-300 feet, it was really buoyant.  There was a light NE over the main spine and a nice convergence seam formed making heading West easy.

The day had big XC written all over it but some low-to-mid level clouds that I thought were going to remain offshore starting marching in.  As the shade line crept up the face of the mountains the handwriting was on the wall so I left La Cumbre Peak with 5500 for the training hill.  Shad followed me (his first time making it to the training hill), Chip top landed and Bob H. headed for East Beach.  The rest headed for the primary LZ's and our flying window closed sharply behind us.

Some of the gang headed back up which turned out to be a good idea because the sky opened back up an hour or so later.  Not sure what the later flights were like, hopefully somebody will post.  Had the clouds not come in this could've been the best day we've had in SB for some time.  Making Ojai today would've been child's play.