The wind was really weak so I spent a long time fighting for lift at the lower bluff. I could see wind coming and it was SSE, so I just had to be patient, and stay up. The mountains that form the eastern flank of Vancouver Island, from Black Jack Ridge up to Mt Arrowsmith were pumping huge cummi's, one after the other, looked like steam clouds from an engine as it chuffed along. They would rise from about 6,000' to about 18,000'. The upper winds were pushing them  well out over the Straight, where they would disappear, quite a sight!

This started me thinking about the chances of an upper westerly, and my feeling one could then fly the upper ridge all the way along to the Hornby Ferry Landing (the bluffs are called "The Bench"). Been a favorite idea of mine for quite some time now. I fooled and tooled around the lower bluff wondering if it would ever pick up, and sure enough it came in, pretty quickly, so I didn't waste anytime and headed to the upper ridge. I did some quick runs to determine the direction and it seemed the westerly was up there as a natural heading into the wind pointed at Qualicum. To be clear, the wind was SSE from sea level to about 300', then over top of this was a SW that was generating much better lift.

I slid along the ridge getting nice lift and tested several spots, it still held. I then made my decision and went towards Sitter's home and this is where SSE tends to fade and in a SSE you have to turn east again, but the lift was still strong. I then went to my next point, Dave and Sally's, the jumping off place to fly the "Bench". I cruised their place and it was still good, so started over to a brown bluff face by Ford Cove for the start.

The lift seemed to be fading here, and I remember thinking I better get back to Dave and Sally's when suddenly my varios started bleeding. What a terrible sound! I left the ridge and flew straight away from it , but now I was faced with having to chose an LZ. There is the beach at Ford Cove (not much room, tide was coming in), next the Hadden's (freshly mowed), then Pam's (she has first a big grass field with sheep, then a huge swamp), after that it's the runway again.

I figured the wind had changed back to SE or I had fallen out of the upper SW (pretty sure now the SW faded, at the time, I thought it might have gone higher). I don't quite know why I chose Hadden's, think I might have been concerned about the sheep at Pam's. I followed the road and set up on the western end of Hadden's. I got smacked pretty good, probably about a 1/2 collapse, dropped and corrected but I then got hit again, then again. My biggest problem was staying up right and in line with the field. As I came in over the trees I hit lift again and knew I wasn't going to make my landing point.

Here is where I made a bad mistake. I was lined up on a narrow field flying the MIDDLE, and I was over shooting with power lines straight ahead. Here's where all that fooling around soaring the lower bluff paid off. I cranked and weight shifted my ass off, spun the glider on it's tip, just missing the other set of power lines that ran down the road. I held the spin until the full 360 was almost completed, but I was heading the last 50' at a terrible rate. I can't remember what I did to the controls as I had my right hand up in the blocks and my left down by my butt, but the glider righted as I came screaming in at grass level and I lifted my legs, applied  brake, shot back up into the wind and fluttered down to a most uneventful landing.

What I couldn't see from above was that Pam's is higher in altitude from Hadden's, sort of a gradual hill. There are an awful lot of very tall trees at the western end of Hadden's and I probably should have followed along the power lines and turned in when I got near. Instead I stayed above those trees and even grazing them I might have run short of available ground. The collapses and the pummeling were the main issues, as I couldn't do anything until I had control, a very bad spot to be in. I think that the whole area down there is a washing machine gone mad.