Flying: 0 Food: 1

Today Team SA was on the 10h00-11h00 slot to ride up the cable way, so South Africa House got off to a slow start. We'd woken up to ominously dark skies, but as the meet director indicated, the skies opened up to a window of sunshine and clouds... 

Arriving on launch, the wind was over the back, but we were optimistic that we would fly. 

So far this week the North / North W / North East winds seem to have been the biggest challenge stopping us from launching into what looked like epic skies. However, over the past few days, when we have gone up to launch, the thermals have eventually pushed up the front of the slope making it possible to launch. 

Day 1 and day 3 yielded nice 'surprise' tasks, and we were hopeful today would also switch on. As the afternoon wore on and the 'window open' was delayed numerous times, our optimism began fading.

What's wrong with this picture?

A few wind technicians had managed to get off the launch, including South African Theunis de Bruin (on the eastern side), some tandems and Martin Scheel from Switzerland, who definitely had the flight of the day. 

With a tempting cloud street out in the valley, but a near nil chance of launching the task was cancelled and for the first time during the World Championships, the field went back down on the chair lift.

It's hard to believe it's already Thursday...(Friday...) - hopefully the weather plays ball tomorrow (and every day after that too...) and we get in a few more respectable tasks. 

One thing we have been doing very successfully in Bulgaria thus far is eating...the lunch packs the organisation gives us are fantastic, and our home cooked meals are beating restaurant food by a long shot. Tonight we (and our visitors) were treated to some delicious pasta - thank you Penny, you're certainly helping us to keep our strength up!

'ballasting up' at South Africa House