With a forecast for a west northwest wind of 8 mph on the ground
and 14 mph at 4,000', I wasn't all that excited about a day of flying with a
strong cross wind. Again, we are resolved to flying tasks that bring us back to
Wilotree Park. One significant other driver per pilot restricts us from going
long distance.

The wind was reasonably light at the flight park as John Simon took off to the
northwest and I followed. I didn't go first this time because given the very
sparse cu's I wasn't certain there would be easily discovered lift. Turns out
that wasn't a problem, but it did put me behind John, not my favorite place to
be.

John mentioned lift by the Mickey Mouse Ears shaped lake to the northwest and I
climbed at under 200 fpm to 3,500' under thin small cu's. The soarcast called
for no cu's but given how close the forecasted cloud base was to the TOL, I
stated that there would be cu's, just barely, and that what we had. Sparse,
thin, quickly formed and disappearing. No bottoms.

John was up at 4,700' heading against the 10 mph west northwest wind and I
followed working two thermals over highway 50 and drifting back to the east over
Groveland to 4,400'. Just wanted to get high enough to be able to make it to
better looking LZ's to the northwest (upwind).

The lift had been pretty rowdy and I was not really appreciating it given that
we had to go upwind to get to the first turnpoint, but so far things were
working even if not comfortably. At least we were flying. I grew accustomed to
the air as the flight progressed and it was pretty cool that we were able to
make good headway against such a wind.

With all the cross wind the thermals were not consistent and you'd be in it for
half a turn then fall out of it. This require a lot of moving around to see
where the best parts of the thermal were. Most were less an 200 fpm on average
over the whole climb.

John radioed back a report of good lift at the Grass Roots airfield. I found 350
fpm average to 4,900', which improved my attitude about the day. John was about
three kilometers to my north so I could pretty easily spot the lift that he was
in.

Six kilometers south of the first turnpoint at the Turnpike and highway 33
intersection I climbed at almost 300 fpm to 4,500' before heading to take the
turnpoint. I had been turning under cu's but there were none at the turnpoint
and none for quite a ways to the southwest toward the second turnpoint at Center
Hill.

As I got near the turnpoint John radioed that he had made it there but was down
to 2,000' heading toward Center Hill. That was not good news. I made the
turnpoint at 2,600'

Turning south west I saw that I had no cu's that I could get to easily. I had a
strong head wind and there was a section of swamp I had to get over first. There
were ragged cu's just to my south so I headed for them instead assuming that if
I could get up I could head west to the Center Hill turnpoint with John.

But falling out of the sky heading for the cu's I was down to 1,400' in no time.
I was under the little puffs but going down more slowly instead of climbing. I
had to go into rescue myself mode.

Heading downwind to the east away from the Center Hill turnpoint I found lift at
less than 1,000' AGL. I hung in 80 fpm until I got back to 1,900'. John radioed
that he found some lift just to stay up but was backing up toward the Turnpike
turnpoint.

I found another 80 fpm thermal to the south on the first one and managed to get
to 2,200'. I was watching the wind lines on the numerous lakes and ponds below
trying to see if there were switches in direction and conflicting lines
indicating convergence of two wind directions.

I searched around and found a better thermal at 185 fpm but I was drifting
further and further east getting downwind of what was now my goal, to make it
back to Wilotree Park. I was able to climb to 3,600', not the 4,900' I craved.

I headed back upwind to get on the upwind side of things and started climbing
again at 80 fpm from 1,600'. Finally I found 250 fpm and was able to get up to
3,400' and not as far east as previously. I was now slightly north northeast of
Wilotree. I had run into winds up to 18 mph out of the west.

John made it to the cu's east of Center Hill and was able to find 500 fpm to get
him to the turnpoint and around. Once he was there it was mostly downwind back
to Wilotree. By then all the cu's between Center Hill and Wilotree were gone. I
was still working cu's up by the Turnpike and just north of highway 27 where it
parallels the Turnpike.

It was all blue to the south toward Wilotree. I headed south with the faint hope
that I could find a couple of blue thermals. There were good possible landing
zones ahead and possible areas of lift before I would get to the very restricted
spots near Groveland.

Unfortunately there was no lift in the blue for me and I took advantage of the
spectacular green fields that were super long. Meanwhile John was able to make
it back to Wilotree going down wind.