14th December - Wx Getting Worse....

Hey there race fans:

Well... yesterday (Thursday) was the worst day of the week. From Christchurch to Omarama the same conditions held sway: Low cloud deck, spitting rain to intermittent rain, moderate to strong winds out of the east. All in all terrible conditions to even hope to fly let alone soar.

I picked up my two S's in Christchurch yesterday and we went about touring the city a little bit. Christchurch is very nice little city of about 100k people. The highlight of our day was doing the big shopping trip for food and nappies (i.e. diapers) and then we went to the Antarctica Center at the Christchurch Airport. Being in one of the closest inhabited areas to Antarctica, it is amazing how much the pull of this great white continent to our South is here.

The tourist center offers up all sorts of neat interpretive displays all about the U.S., New Zealand and other international programs going on down on the ice. One of the interactive display involves putting on wellies (overshoes), donning arctic coats, and then going into a big icebox, complete with snow, and experiencing a blizzard with winds of about 30 mph. The tourists around me were impressed, but it was actually warmer and less windy than many of the winter days we operated our ride business in Steamboat Springs, Colorado!

Most everyone in the GP is here now. The only person I have not seen is Team Galletto from Italy. As Marina is usually the life of the party, the party has definitely not gotten going yet :-) The newest arrival is Petr Krejirk and is son.

The weather forecast is dismal. For today, the only hope is a little clearing area behind the southbound warm front. If we can get the clearance in past us by about 2 p.m local, then there is chance (very slim) for some soaring to be done by 3-6 p.m. The hope for tomorrow and Sunday is not much better, but I think there will be some aviating going on both days and maybe even some O.K. soaring on Sunday, IMHO.

That's it from the place of light (dull light , but still light none the less).

See Ya! Tim/EY