Manilla, XC Open

We got into Manilla last night and it is a lot greener than when we left 10 days ago. They are running the XC Open right now, so there are a lot of people in the air which makes going XC a whole lot easier. The way they do the scoring is really simple, you submit your own flight to Leonardo, and your score pops out. Leonardo is really great because you can look at other pilots flight stats or look at the flight in 3D on google earth with one click.

Today the Cu was beautiful, but you had to choose your clouds carefully because some were a waste of time. We had a tail wind pushing us along the classic XC route, which is basically north. I landed past Barabba at 45km - there was a huge blue hole over Barabba and it claimed many a wing.

Hitch hiking has never been easier, I bet it has to do with Ewa being sucked into a Cu Nim here last week and making the news big time - the locals are curious and want to talk to us about it. Kari Castle talked to Ewa in person and has the facts about what happened.

The World Championships starts this coming Sunday, and all the big guns are here. I saw the Canadian team on launch today, they are looking a bit sun burnt, which makes sense when you come from -40C to +40C. It is actually much cooler here now than it was a month ago.