“Rain? We stopped? It is no longer clear … it’s raining everywhere and not here, here it comes again” … These were the words of the day. We meet in the Parque del Norte Hatillo. Our first meeting in this beautiful place after its Major, Hon. Chely Rodríguez, kept it closed for about two weeks with the intention of preventing the spread of Covid19.
In our return, It turned out that we found a very nice park, well arranged. And especially with many visitors, all willing to have a great time in the place. This included in the morning a group of jockeys of “Paso Fino” Horses filming a commercial on site.
From the part of the family of Team Kamikazes present were…
Pablo Cruz and his wife Millie
Ricardo González and his wife Ermelinda
Ariel Rodríguez and her grandson Derick Castro
Eric Harthman and his neighbor Angie
Luis Ruiz and his son Ian Darrell
The former Team pilot, Héctor Morales
Tim Slauson
Eric Roman
Alberto Sabah
Ted Sowinski
Gilbert Avila (on his return to Puerto Rico)
We also have attending a lot of visitors, who looks to know more about the sport of Paramotor. Even some of them were coordinating to start their training as soon as possible 💪.
As we mentioned at the beginning of the story. The weather was very changeable, at least the wind was at an flyable intensity of 7 to 12 mph all day. This was used by experts pilots Pablo, Ted, Alberto and Derick to keep flying along the Camuy / Hatillo coasts. Ted in particular every time he went flying, he was at least an hour in the air on each flight (if the rain allowed🙂) …
We have to mention that the first pilot to say present was Tim Slauson. He normally visits Puerto Rico about 3 or 4 times a year and there are just few occasions when he can enjoy a good day of flight. Today was one of those days. He coordinated early with his Instructor Luis Ruiz, and he went flying around, and not just once, but on several occasions practicing his skills in takeoffs and landings 💪. He was flying his BGD Epic paraglider, with which he was very comfortable, since it is much more agile than his previous glider. Tomorrow it was his return to New York, he was very happy 🙂!!!
As for the students of the school. Eric Harthman, made a lot of ground handling with the Paraglider. He initially started with his training glider, BGD Seed, and then took his sporty paraglider, Ozone Spyder 3. We are one step away from his first solo flight, we will keep you posted. Eric Román for his part, despite having already made some flights in his career, got there to just practice with his paraglider. And it is that Eric had not practiced for more than a month and wanted to be ready to fly again tomorrow in Isabela if possible 🙂…
In Ariel’s case, instead of flying, he was aware of his grandson Derick, who flew around showing great mastery. We have interesting plans for Derick at school in the not too distant future, we will tell you about it, for now we hope that he will continue to gain experience …
Another who was giving hard to his practices, was Ricardo González. Not only that, but he did it so well, that Luis and Pablo encouraged him to mount a Paramotor on his back (SkyMax Expedition Moster), and Ricardo went flying again, after a couple of years without being able to do it. Congratulations 💪!!!.
While Luis Ruiz, assisted by his son Ian Darrell, made some Demo flights to people interested in the sport. From all over the island they gathered to share in our activity !!!. All of them carrying a beautiful memory of what it feels like to be able to “fly”. (See the Photos section). This activity had to stop on several occasions due to the rain, and just when we were thinking of ending the flight activity, the good weather returned again … that is how stayed until late in the afternoon.
To finish, we tell you that we had the presence of the Team’s friend and pilot, Gilbert Avila, who is back on the island. His professional work keeps him away, but whenever he can, he takes a getaway and shares with us. Soon we will put him in Training mood again.
At about 4 PM, we ended the activity. Intense rains developed in different sectors, but none of them touched us directly. Thank goodness for another great day. Tomorrow the roads lead to Isabela, we’ll see how it goes…. Blessings 🙏!!!
Photos…
