I was stupid today.  After checking the weather, i decided to head for Oostduinkerke.  Arriving there around 13h30, a few pilots were soaring the dune so i immediately hopped into the air too, but unfortunately without much success: the wind dropped and was too north.  After some playing around, things started to change, we got a perfect north-westerly wind, but sometimes quite strong... I decided to continue playing in front of the dune... way in front of the dune... oh yes, I was definately waaay in front of the dune...

It looked like it was going to be a nice day... with a nice north to north-easterly wind... so not quite good for soaring at the Belgian coast... but still... my motto is always: "Those who don't try, don't fly!" so after watching the "Aliens" movie in the morning, i convinced my girlfriend to drive us to Oostduinkerke for some beach fun... with or without glider.  My backup plans were kiting, geocaching and hanging out at the beach.  And yes... the wind indeed was too northerly with eaven some norht-east in it...

Rochehaut is always a fun place to fly: lots of supporters standing right behind you at take-off.  Lots of curious faces looking at the pilots and their gliders, asking lots of newbie-paragliding questions and being amazed about lots of things that are trivial to every paragliding pilot.  If you don't feel comfortable with lots of people watching you at take-off, then don't come flying in Rochehaut!

First time flying with new paraglider (UP SummitXC) and new harness (Kortel KamasutraII) in 2 new sites for me close to the coast in Northern France.

Premiere fois en vol avec ma nouvelle voile (UP SummitXC) et ma nouvelle sellette (Kortel KamasutraII) a deux sites que je n'avais pas encore volé pres de la côte dans le nord de la France.

What a wonderful day today!  Jumped on the train at 7h42 direction Zaventem where Johan from the organization came to pick me up.  After picking up some other pilots we headed for Coo for the first task of the Belgian Ardenne Open.  Along the road, it didn't look very promising: lots of cloud-cover and the sun didn't seem to be able to punch through...  Arriving in Coo, we got our nice Belgian Ardenne Open T-shirt and together with Geoffrey I walked up to take-off.  My

'Kans op onweer in het oosten van het land' werd gezegd in het weerbericht op de radio op weg naar Rochehaut. Ik hoopte dat het zover niet zou komen maar uiteraard was ik goed gewaarschuwd, teveel instabiliteit is teveel. In Rochehaut aangekomen zag het er nog allemaal goed uit behalve dat de 17-19km/h voorspelde zuiderwind er absoluut niet stond. Eerst koffie drinken dan maar met zicht op het terras.

Last week I was at the Czech Open 2009 in Levico Terme, Italy. I went there with my friend Mark and his camper. We had 4 tasks, although 5 could have been possible if they didn't cancel Tuesday so fast: 1 hour after the cancellation the high cirrus broke open and we made nice flights.