Costa Rica in March

[MikeB]

A flying holiday in Costa Rica,
As the spring skiing in New England was atrocious this year, my annual St Patty's day trip north went in the opposite direction.
I went to Costa Rica to fly with Nick Crane (http://www.costaricaparagliding.com/) who has been leading trips there for more than 10 years. I have a new Ozone Swift 4 and a Sup-Air Escape2 that needed breaking in. I actually flew the Swift4 at Brad Gunusco's SIV course in Yelapa last November, but 'that's not flying'. just practicing how not to die!
He picked me up at Sat morning and we drove to Nemaclys, the Punta Caldera ocean-facing main launch in northen Puntarenas (http://www.nemaclys.com/). There's a nice restautant, tandem flights and fine soaring and top landing. I was surprised (several times, actually) that the Swift4 comes up so fast in a reverse launch that I got to do some re-takes.
The following day we teamed up with some pilots I'd met at Tater Hill as well as Kim Phinny (who says Hi to Krista) and we took some machete's to the Danny Mann launch in Tarcoles, a launch on a mountainside owned by the Canadian Danny Mann. It needed some trimming and cutting of trees in the slot for safer launching. We all got off in the warm thermals which make if possible to land at the beach with altitude, or in the big field near the highway.
Continuing the search for new launches, we headed inland from Parrita to Las Vegas and the launch often in the clouds.
The lift was lacking, the glide to an LZ was long and the sun was not creating bouyant air for the cloud-cover, so we drove out and continued south on Rt 34 to Dominical, a surfing town a couple of hours south. There, the beach landings are the norm, either Dominicalito or Dominical , near our hotel. The launch has been used for many years, but this may be the last as the owners are building on the lot. Over the next few days, we all had fine flying to the beaches. There is another launch (relatively new at least since 2008 when I was last there) at Hatillo, just north of Dominical. With some lift, you can fly back across the Rio Baru and land at the beach near the hotels. I did that on my first (and only) launch there.
Our last new launch was a couple hours further south, called Fox's or Mille Metros, between Coronado and Puerto Cortes, an hour on the highway and 45 minutes on narrow grassy roads going up to 3000 ft. We launched into the blue sky and had our 30' or so of looking for lift and then looking for landing. The kids came out to smile and say hello.
There are several small hotels and hostels in Dominical and restaurants of many persuasions. There are more surfer dudes and dudettes than pilots, but unless you are in Oludeniz, Turkey or POM, that will generally be true. There a lot of Tico pilots, many of whom came to Tater Hill last year. I hope some of them will come back.
So I like my Swift4. I have to have a hand bag for accessories as the reversible Escape2 will only hold the reserve, wing and helmet. But I do like the light weightedness (similar to Tom C's feelings of lightness) and I love it's flying. The reserve is a front mount so I no problem finding the handle.
PS If any one is interested in Yelapa SIV with Brad, make sure you get ALL the emails about dates, equipment and timing. I signed up with Les and missed a couple of emails. I think they're coordinating better now.
Cheers from Hedgesville, WV Michael Brooks