This was a very active week, dedicated to training new students at the school. This despite the fact that the weather conditions were adverse and therefore it was necessary to improvise with the training places.
Monday, April 08, 2024…
We begin the intensive training of Mr. José Pérez, a native of New Jersey, who will be in Puerto Rico for a couple of weeks taking an intensive Paramotor course. The first training was schedule in Villa Pesquera Isabela starting at 10 AM. The instructor Luis Ruiz began with the theoretical parts of the sport. Later, he took advantage of the relative good weather to begin the paragliding inflation practices and also took José to fly with him in a Tandem Fly as part of the preparation for the next days.
In the afternoon it became windy and we finished the first training session. Later in the day, Luis Ruiz was also looking for his friend and instructor David Garber at the airport (BQN), who arrived with his wife Amara. David was also coming to give training to one of his students in the next few days.
Tuesday, April 09, 2024…
Second day of training for José Pérez, and this time we meet at La Guancha in Ponce. The student/pilot Luis Antonio Cruz accompanied us there. The weather was somewhat windy, but within the safety range for practicing paragliding inflation.
Luis Antonio decided to stay practicing with his paraglider on ground, instead of go flying.
From 11 AM to 2:30 PM the conditions were very good and were used by the students in their practices. José Pérez is already beginning to show progress over his paragliding inflation in reverse mode.
Luis Ruiz took advantage of a moment to take a short flight around the surrounding area.
While David Garber, waiting for his student (tomorrow),goes to the Pastillo area in Isabela. He managed to do Free Flight and this time taking off from the ground !!! and taking advantage of nearby hills, he managed to arrive to the Royal Isabela cliff where he spent hours flying. Is good to note that the wind intensity was at 20 mph+ at every moment. Awesome!!!
Wednesday, April 10, 2024…
Today was a free day from training. The weather conditions were very erratic, a lot of wind and rain, and we decided to rest to resume training tomorrow…
Thursday, April 11, 2024…
Strong wind conditions (20 mph+) prevailed on both the North and South Coast of the Island. This time Luis Ruiz bet for the prevailing conditions in the town of Mayaguez. As the North and South systems coincide, in Mayaguez they left excellent conditions for practicing with winds coming in from the W and no turbulence. The detail is that the bubble for this good weather did not last long. 11 AM to 2:30 PM.
José Pérez took advantage of those hours to continue polishing his paragliding skills. David Garber this time arrived with his student, Pete, a native of Pennsylvania. He began his ground handling paraglider training.
At one point, David Garber, with the assistance of Luis Ruiz, went flying by the Towing method. He used the wind coming from the W and the nearby bushes that gave “Lift”. The idea worked very good and David done something memorable, but the intensity of the winds decreased and in the same way his flight in the area ended.
Friday, April 12, 2024…
Aiming for similar conditions to the previous day, we returned to Mayaguez earlier. Present were, Luis Ruiz, his student José Pérez, David Garber and his student Pete. This time, although the winds again came from the W again, the rain came much faster and only Luis Ruiz was able to do a little inflation on paragliding before the sky closed with clouds.
Our plan B for the day was the Anasco Beach, very close to Mayaguez. We moved there with little hope, but was way better than expected. The clouds of Mayaguez move away from Anasco, where the sky looks clear.
We arrived to Anasco and found good conditions to practice. We were also accompanied by Mario Muñiz and his wife Ivonne. A little later the student Wilkins “Chino” Morales arrived accompanied by the pilot Danis Rodríguez.
All the students, José, Pete, Mario and Chino, managed to practice inflating until the sky closed in clouds around 3 PM. At least our gamble on moving from Mayaguez to Anasco paid off. This time, after finishing the activity, it was raining non-stop all night, at least for the western region of the island.
Photos…
