This was a hell of a day. We woke at 3am and left at 3:30am, arriving at Haleaekala an hour and a half later, driving up a winding mountain road in the dark. We were rewarded with a great looking sunrise.
The crater.
A group shot at the top.
After the sunrise, we drove down the hill and then back up a different section of hill and had a great flight from Ferns launch.
This is at 8:45am. The clouds come in super quick in the morning,such that you have to arrive at 7:30 (when it goes anabatic) to get a flight in.
After our flight we drove around the road to Hana. We stopped at a lava tube just outside of Hana.
A skylight in the lava tube.Melissa has a certain glow about her.This one is for Sean. A sign posted in the tube.There was a maze outside, we found a tree in the center. Black sand beach along the road to Hana.Found a cool spider and web. This was a hard shot to get, as everything nearby was so chaotic of a background that it drowned out the web.We found a semi-hidden waterfall and relaxed for a bit.
We were out for 14 hours, driving for a good chunk of it. When we got home, the sun went down shortly after and Miranda and I ran out to watch it head out.
I’m not going to blog every day this time. I’m pretty blogged out after writing about all of Adepticon. 😛 But here’s some photos and some mini-stories to go with them. 🙂
The flight area in Maui is pretty nice. Big open green fields. Only a few things you have to worry about – some cattle, a spot for RC planes, cowpies and one fence. The LZ comes into a bowl, which is worrisome to land on since the ground continues sloping away as you’re trying to land, but it slopes up again shortly after and there’s lots of space.
Poli Poli Flight Park, from the Echoes (Lower) launchDexter is the instructor in this area, on the left.Russ gets ready to fly.Melissa gets ready to fly.
We only got one flight in on the first day. The flying window is from 7am-ish until 11am-ish, if you’re lucky. The winds get to strong and/or to turbulent after that. The Echoes launch is a very easy launch – I called it Diefenbaker++, as you could really just kite all the way down the hill if you so choose.
Drove around, went to Lahaina and wandered around.
Ex-lobster.Who is jealous of our shave ice? 🙂
Up again early this morning and out to Echoes launch again. I had 2 easy flights and landings from there, Russ had 3 and Melissa had 2. The launch and landing are so close together that it’s easy to get many flights, even if they are max 6 minutes long.
After a flight each from Echoes (at 3000ft above sea level), we drove up another 15 minutes to Ferns launch, which is 6000ft above sea level. When we got up there, Dexter gave us a mini-orientation and then quickly had to go off to do a tandem before the clouds closed it off. He said that as long as you can see the valley, it was ok to launch. Apparently some pilots fly by instrument from here, since the clouds come in pretty quickly. One pilot we were talking to said that one time he was 4000 above the LZ and couldn’t see it, so he just kept flying out. You land in a cow field eventually, and when he drove back up to the LZ it was completely socked in.
Russ and Melissa at Ferns launch.
We didn’t end up flying from here – the clouds came in and closed off the land and we decided to go down to the Echoes launch again. We’ll try Ferns tomorrow morning instead!
3 gliders in a row.Melissa flying!Russ coming in to land.
We went to a goat farm after that and checked out the goats and bought goat truffles. We’ll eat those later. 🙂
Miranda finds a new best friend.
Miranda finds another new best friend.
I think we barely avoided coming home with a new goat – they were on sale for $200-$240, which I think is fairly reasonable.
Sitting around the house now, having a mango and rum blended drink and doing computery things. Heading out to the beach shortly!
