After cruising with the crowds on Combe for a hour I was getting a little dispirited that I had blown the best day so far this year. The wind was very light at times and the eventual climb out had little drift.

A gaggle helped for the first half of the flight - thanks John (Collie) and Richard (Bungay) and all the others for pointing out the lift. We seemed to join up randomly over the next 3 hours.

Getting to the South Downs I decided to stick with the ridge and get the benefit of the building northerly breeze drift with climbs and then head back down the ridge. Amazingly my plan seemed to work despite frozen hands and increasing fatigue.

The lift then transformed into magical sea breeze covergence with a constant 2 up on half bar resulting in straightforward transitions across the gaps and an easy avoidance of Shoreham airspace.

Arriving over the Dyke after 6 pm was one of the highlights of my paragliding life and a right of passage. Having not flown there since my initial early flights 20 years ago under the eye of the legendary instructor Andy Napolitan, it felt wonderful to have made it back on an XC flight.

Getting down onto the ground out of the sea breeze convergence was hard work as my pathetic attempt at a spiral dive to burn off 1500 ft left me higher than when I started.

Eventually landed on the Dyke at the feet of Richard Westgate who offered the ultimate luxury high speed retrieve drive straight back to Combe. (huge thanks).