As some of you might remember, a couple of months ago my girlfriend and I went on an off-season vacation to the Outer Banks (Kitty Hawk area). Said girlfriend had been there years and years before and had done beginning hanggliding, which sounded like a lot of fun, so we went to go do some.
The photos have come back.
We started off from Kitty Hawk Kites, which is a very nice company, or at least have a very nice retail office. We had gone the day before, but the winds were too harsh, so we came back the next morning to get our flights in. There were a bunch of us – well, we thought so. It was off-season; the place gets insanely crowded in the summertime, which on the whole is fairly true for the Outer Banks in general.
The school runs its classes out of Jockey’s Ridge State Park, home of the biggest sand dune in the USA. It’s not too far from Kitty Hawk itself – which is not a coincidence, at least from the point of view of the school. The Wright brothers picked their testing site precisely because the winds are both reliable, steady and consistent… all things valuable in unpowered flight.
But let us look at photos.
Yup, that’s me pointing off at the sky in which I shall soon be cavorting like the intrepid swallow, or possibly albatross*. It’s bloody cold out, which is why the hat and gloves; the outstretched hand represents my symbolic desire to emulate the Icarian dream that so haunts my people… but only this time our defiance of the sun shall not be answered with deadly mockery.
Or possibly I’m just hamming it up for the camera.
Here we see me (who will henceforth known as the Daedalean) preparing myself for the battle with cruel, cruel gravity. It turns out that the winds are especially tricky today; only the most skilled and puissant potential windmasters may dare try to snap the bonds of earth. Naturally, I went first. All suggestions that this was actually because I went last in the day before’s abortive attempts (and thus felt mildly put-upon) will be of course ignored with dignity.
So I ran, and ran, and ran… and apparently turned into something that is not in point of fact a ninja. Ah, this was on the same roll of film; Halloween pictures, in fact. I would like to take the time to point out for the record that I was not actually a ninja for that party. First, I couldn’t have been a ninja, because there are no such things as ninja. Second, the party was a Pirate party, so I couldn’t have been a ninja. A ninja showing up at a pirate party? The mind reels at the notion. Thirdly and lastly, if you look at the text on the shirt it clearly says “I am not a ninja. Honest.” This demonstrates that I have clearly indicated my utter lack of ninjaness at that party, and any reports that I became one with the night (one with the Caribbean rum punch is a different story), flipped out and killed people or tried to put my motorcycle onto a small rubber raft should be completely and utterly discounted.
Just Google “Stick of pain!” and you’ll get the last bit.
Anyway, taking off was a bit of a chore – for some reason, my lungs are still insisting on not snapping back from the eighteen years that I subjected them to cigarette smoke. I don’t know why; it’s been, what, eight months now? – but with a good slope, a good run and my teacher assistant beside me, the velocity was with me. I went aloft…
…yeah, that’s right, baby. Look at that lift. That’s at least a foot off of the ground. See the perfect form! Thrill to the command of mind over body and machine! Pay absolutely no attention to the guy running alongside the Daedalean! Yes, oh my droogies, I indeed owned the heavens that brisk morning, slipping free of the bonds of this heavy, fallen world to take my rightful place among the sylphs…
…but, alas, all things must come to an end. A long three seconds after takeoff, I consented to walk among mortals again, purified by my journey (the physical sensations are much like that of windburn). Sadly, so sadly, conditions were such that my girlfriend could not match me in flight; the winds got tricksy and sly soon afterwards and there was a limit to how long we could stay out on the dunes. So We grabbed a wind check; we figured that we’d probably be back that way some time before 2013. Besides, there were other places to grace with our presence. To the wineries!
All facetiousness aside, this was a whole heck of a lot of fun to do, what little of it I actually got to. If it weren’t for the fact that it’s an expensive hobby, I’d think about taking it up. So, if you go down to Kitty Hawk in the off season, I would recommend giving it a shot; it’s well worth doing.
Wear Chapstik, though. Trust me on this.
Moe
*”AN ALBATROSS! WITH GREAT, BIG, HUUUUUGE WINGS! … Oh, Delores.”
(pause)
Sorry about that.
Woah, purple belt in ninjitsu. Impressed. That’s one up from paisley, isn’t it?
Must have been damn cool, no matter how high. Thanks for sharing this.
Well, now we have it. Proof positive that creating costumes is not one of your many talents. Unless you have counter-proof from one of your SCA gatherings, hmmm?
” Unless you have counter-proof from one of your SCA gatherings, hmmm?”
Surely you jest. My ability to make costumes is only matched by my ability to do n-dimensional geometric problems in my head while dancing the tarantella in free fall.
Which is to say, thank God for cash.
Tangentially related musing from Ogged.