Let the eagle soaaaar

May 9, 2006

like she's neeeeever soaaaaared befooooore

crooned John Ashcroft, the former attorney general, in what is the worst song sung by a politician yet, and yet strangely that's what went through my mind as I took off and flew slowly, with considerable trepidation, towards the windsock jutting out on the cliff to the right, unsure of what scene would unfold afterwards, provided that I cleared it with enough altitude to begin with. Mussel rock beach is the place where the San Andreas fault crosses into the Pacific after traversing hundreds of miles inland, and while the flyover states dream that someday a big enough earthquake will make California, or at least the bay area, split off into the ocean, in reality, it's mostly the houses in the Westlake district, that sit precariously atop the eroding 700 foot cliffs that rise from the beach, that might end up in the ocean. I rounded the corner with enough altitude, and a dream-like scene, at once beautiful and intimidating, unfolded: very little beach due to the tide (DO NOT ever land in the water, screamed the voice in my head from all of the site orientation), the cliffs, the houses, the powerlines, the busy roads, and at least a dozen or more colorful paragliders and hanggliders soaring the cliffs lazily. Luckily, the vario started beeping in a crescendo, and I started gaining altitude. The rate of climb picked up as I passed by a large section of the cliff from which 15 houses had tumbled a few years ago in a landslide. The gouged-out shape of the side funneled the air up nicely in a Venturi effect and in the fullness of time, I climbed to a 1000 feet, and above the houses and the playgrounds, and the busy highway 1.

Mussel Rock paragliding site, Pacifica CA

(All pictures courtesy of Andy Stocker: http://www.astocker.com/paragliding/index.html. Soon, I will be generating some of these)

For an hour, I went back and forth, about 2 miles, along the coastline marveling the scenery, and getting to know my glider much more. I experimented with crab angles, speed to fly (slow in lift, fast in sink), the speed bar. I veered over the ocean to burn off altitude, and veered back to the gouged out cliffs to regain, always remembering that you don't want to get too high here because of the wind gradient. I turned into the wind, and my sunburned face into the setting sun, and relished the feeling of the glider almost being "parked" in the air, as the windspeed almost cancelled my airspeed. My friend Mihir came 40 feet below me, causing me to do a quick S-turn, just to be super conservative about a midair 'incident'. When the phone rang, about an hour into my flight, I guessed it must be Jo. My hands were numb from the cold, my legs were trembling from the anxiety-driven decision to keep them hooked into the speed bar, and my shoulder muscles were going to sleep from the constant battle against the wind. It was time to come down from my first soaring flight along the wild California coastline! And while eagles mainly soar on land, I do have a good idea now what a seagull or pelican feels like as it cruises the coast.

The houses on the Westlake cliffs

Westlake Cliffs