Week 6 - Day 5

Very frontal day, 8/8 stratus at probably around 5,0000 ft amsl for most of the morning. The higher level cirrus moved off to the East and with the sun now completely out it set to work very quickly evaporating much of the stratus, but there was still a very large CuNim (?) out to the West within 5km. We got the glider out and were sat in, with the tug warming up, when Jose Antonio called off the launch due to a considerable gust front (wind had gone from about 5kts to 20kts in the time it took us to get in and get cameras etc ready). Forced to retreat with glider in tow to the hangar, we hoped for the predicted much clearer window from about 5pm. This did come, but by the time we launched (Wind 280/10-15) at 5:30 no new cumulus were being formed, and the only apparent hope was ridge and wave. We played on the West and North facing sections of Stage 1 for a time, but found it difficult to maintain height, but for about 15 minutes we found either a very small area of wave or a very persistent thermal in the middle of the Hecho valley. Got some fantastic shots close up with the vultures (must have camera ready at all times from now on...), and were back on the ground after an hour and a quarter. Forecast for Friday is much better, let's hope that they're right.