The Oregon Hang Gliding Association (OHGA) sponsors a fly-in and friendly competition every year in April on the Oregon coast centered around the town of Oceanside. C.J. and I have been going to this event for years and this year was no exception. We drove down on Friday, and , for a change, it was not raining. We hung out at the launch at Oceanside while some people squeaked off for short flights (although Sarge got as far as the cliffs down near the condos). The launch area on Maxwell Mountain has changed with the addition of a berm cutting off the far third from easy access (This weekend we were still allowed to use that area for launching.) and enough gravel on the parking/setup area to avoid the usual mud and puddles. We camped at Cape Lookout State Park that night and headed back to Oceanside for the pilots meeting the next day. Typically, it did not get underway for another hour or so and also typically, we ended up going to Sollie Smith.east of Tillamook, to fly. Conditions were actually good and both C.J. and I soared on Sugarloaf and then landed as close to the spot landing marker as possible (somewhat difficult as the wind was stronger on the ground than we expected).
After hanging out for a while, we headed down to Cape Lookout and the Anderson's Viewpoint launch. It was blowing too hard for paragliders (although some launched anyway) and the tide was pretty high with very little beach exposed. Hang gliders were soaring and some were high but the landings did not look like fun. We went back to camp and took care of some camp chores before returning to Oceanside for one of the famous dinners and award ceremonies. C.J. took third place in the spotlanding contest and got a nice glass trophy made by Lisa Tate. The top ten finishers (and I was 7th) got a framed photo with a silver dollar.
Sunday did not look too great with strong winds but we went up to Andersons to look at conditions after packing up and breaking camp. Cutting our losses we took off shortly thereafter and drove directly to Portland and had lunch and a great visit with Janet Williams, Dave being up at Eagle Harbor working on their boat. We were back in North Bend while it was still light.
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