The traveling went well. A bit long but it´s always exciting meeting up with friends. Glider cost me $250us - the most I´ve had to pay to take a glider with me on the plane...but what can you do.

We got into Guayquil, Ecuador at about 8PM last night and were met by an entourage of hosts...Raul, Mike, Michael, a few new faces...and their cameraman taking video of us coming out of customs!

I'm off to Ecuador in the morning. Wow. That sounds crazy. I barely knew where exactly Ecuador was three weeks ago when I booked my flight...I actually looked on the map after I booked it. It goes without saying, I'm really looking forward to it.

I've finally posted the 'official' 2008 PG Points - they can be found here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hpac/files/Competiton/ (You need to be a member of the HPAC YahooGroup). I included both PDF format and Excel due to some weird Mac/Yahoo file formatting issues when uploading the files to the YahooGroups. If you want the Excel file emailed to you, just ask.

I got tired of traveling to these fantastic hang gliding competitions and then getting so wrapped up in competing and performance...and coming home with no pictures of my adventures. I tried tethering a camera to my harness but I could never whip it out in time to get the shot I wanted before having to let go and regain control. And then I was so vain and disappointed that I didn't have myself in those great pics.

Not bad for a Canadian... :)

"Dear Mark Dowsett,

Congratulations! Your photo (sunlitglider.jpg) was selected for the September shot in the 2009 calendar! The calendars will arrive in mid November and are sure to be a big hit. Your contribution has helped us achieve a level of excellence which many are sure to enjoy!

Raul sent me the set of possible waypoints for the ridge racing at Canoa...check the map out below...it may be a bit more extreme than I first thought!

The distance from the top of the screen to bottom is about 32km. The distance of that inlet is about 3km. I hope the Google images are high-tide as I wouldn't want to sink out...the beech looks a bit skinny!

Also check out the (right-click and "Save As") Google Earth file as you can see Raul's images in the Google Earth Panoramio images.

I just couldn't resist...I'm heading off to the Canoa Open in Ecuador! I scrounged up enough airline points to cover my flight (taxes are about $200) + cost of taking my glider and off I go! I was assured everything else is super cheap down there and the event is sponsored by the biggest beer company in Ecuador so I felt I couldn't miss out on this one.

Registration for the Canoa Open is now open on this site. I'm tempted to go...if you look at Jamie's blog posts from last year you'll see how much fun it is.

It's a 3-day ridge racing competition and it sounds like Raul has lined up some nice sponsors for the event.

Also check out Jamie's pictures from last here here.