Devils Dyke Friday 5th March

My first flight since October last year so I was a little tentative
about heading out on a day which was forecast to be both thermic and a
little on the breezy side for PG's but all turned out ok. There was a
heavy inversion and light breeze for the first few hours which I put
to good use by reminding myself how to ground handle again and catch
up on chit chat. Things got going at about 11am with lots of PG's and
a couple of HG's boating about in nice lift under a blue sky. Got a
good climb at about 12.30 with Dave Massie which was 2.5m/s on the
averager, Dave returned to the hill just below 2k but I stuck with it
and drifted over the north of brighton upto a max of 3000ft. Smoke
below was drifting north indicating a sea breeze so I headed NE and
got another climb from low over Brighton Uni at Rottingdean and got
back to what I guess was the inversion top at 3000ft. After drifting
for a while in zero's and getting a bit beaten up by what I guess was
the sea breeze front (can you get those on a blue day?) I headed over
Lewes with an alarmingly fast ground speed. Soared a hill above the
A27 cutting for a few beats in horribly rough air and was barely able
to penertrate forward so was quite happy to land in a nice open field.
Thumbed a lift straight to the Devils Dyke Pub from a very friendly
van driver. Only Rigid HG's and some brave (desperate?) PG's still
flying when I headed to work. The cumulus never appeared but a good
day out to blow the cobwebs away.

Chris Jones