The forecast is for an east wind at about 10 mph at 4,000'. Cu's
are expected by not very thick, only a few, widely scattered. We expected to get
over 5,000'. I would dress with five layers, but the light gloves.

There were no cu's around us at Wilotree Park, they were all to the south so we
waited until after 1 PM. I told Larry to go first as it looked like he wanted to
and I got pulled up toward him to the south.  I pinned off at 1,800' and
worked light lift near the cu's.

It took about fifteen minutes of working bits and pieces of lift before I found
300+ fpm to 4,200' under some nice looking cu's. There were no cu's to the
north.

Then I lost it all as I was fiddling with the Blade as it didn't have the right
task. Apparently you can't just edit a task, you need to clear it. I flew back
to where I got up at first as that's where the cu's were and down to about
1,000' I either had a nice place to land (but not back at the flight park) or I
could get up.

I found the lift and for the next forty five minutes about all I did was circle
and drift west in the 7 - 11 mph east wind. Larry was out there somewhere ahead
of me. I was headed for the Green Swamp and he was over it getting up.

I was in a cloud street and there were no cu's to the north, but that's where
the turnpoints were. Larry was on the north edge of the cloud street. I was
happy to stay under it as it took me over the Green Swamp as the turnpoints were
to the northwest and I was still on track to get over to them.

Larry headed out into the blue as I continued turning under the cu's to 5,300'.
Reaching Webster at 1,600' Larry found a small cu to get under.

The cu's started popping to my north as I was about to be forced to leave the
cloud street and head north. I'd been in the air for an hour and twenty minutes
and I was finally ready to get started on the flight.

I went from cu to cu averaging 200 or more fpm staying over 4,200'. Larry called
out 200 fpm just northwest of the  Cheryl airfield northeast of Bushnell so
I went for it and down to 1,800' found 250 fpm to over 5,000'. There were lots
of cu's now after 3 PM.

With plentiful lift around I caught up with Larry at the Lake Panosofkee and we
climbed with a couple of immature eagles that were friendly enough to over
6,000'.

We now had a decision to make. The next turnpoint was to the east into an area
with no cu's. If we headed south east there was a surfeit of cu's all the way
back to Wilotree Park. We decided to head back against the head wind.

There were cloud streets lined up southeast to northwest and we just headed
right for them with are good buddies, the eagles. The lift was on the south side
and it was not all that pleasant but we hung with it staying near cloud base.

We stopped for 400 fpm 17 kilometers out and then found plenty of lift on the
way in. Pedro Garcia made it all the way around the course without our short cut
but he said that it wasn't easy, like it was for us.