I'm all wet.

Here is a quick update to let you all know I survived my Mexican SIV clinic ;)
These guys are SO my style down here, here was how Rulo described what he wanted me to do on my second run over the lake today: "Ok, so you're going to do a negative spin first, I want you to spin 360 and as you come out facing the lake again go directly to a full stall (he's of course describing everything in detail), then you can do a SAT and just as you are bleeding out from that I want you to keep some speed and come out straight towards the lake with a big climb and then full stall again dynamically and this time come right out of it - check your surge it's going to be big, then whether you do everything right or not, chuck your reserve."
I see what he's doing ... and I like it!! He basically wanted me to actually practice the negative spin and full stall but then just get myself completely f#cked so the reserve deployment is as realistic as possible :0
I headed out over the water with a plastic baggie over my radio and a plastic water bottle we found in the trash can next to launch tied to my reserve handle so it doesn't sink. Oh yeah, they put a life jacket on me too. Rulo tells me to go for the negative spin. I bury my right brake, spin quickly and fall fast. I let out my right hand and forgot to go directly to stall but instead tried to just check the surge. I was way late and this time I definitely got some line slack as my wing flew forward and down and frontaled while I shot a small arc right between my linesets. When I hit and came tight on the lines again I expected another huge surge but I was actually flying straight and level again! Rulo says o.k. you can do the SAT now. I'm so excited for this! I ready myself, take a wrap on the right brake, and pull into a spiral... a bit too timidly. My spiral winds up and I realize I am burning precious altitude but I think to myself if I can just manhandle this thing into a lazy SAT then my descent will slow. I lean and pull harder on my right brake. By this point I had done a couple revolutions in a deep spiral and was going Mach Loonie so it was incredibly hard to get my wing to break past horizontal. Just as it starts to come around into a SAT I realize that I'm probably less than 300 feet up and it's time to get serious. Rulo is saying something over the radio but my only thought is getting the reserve out. Since I'm now trying to bleed out from the spiral I take my right hand out of the brake and reach for the reserve handle. I notice my wing is now mostly out of the spiral and it's starting a climb-and-dive/surge exit but I'm too preoccupied with just getting the damn reserve handle out, which is firmly stuck as I give it a tremendous tug. NOT the time for this to happen as I actually am kind of counting on this thing presently! (Btw, it stuck rather badly during the 'dry' reserve clinic a couple months ago, AND I just read a safety alert notice from my harness's manufacturer that my model of harness has been having issues with the velcro tab that closes the outer reserve container pins sticking to the pin laces and making it difficult to pull the reserve and inner container out. NOT a good quality for a harness and not something that's ever been told to me before this trip!)
(Rulo thinks it might also have to do with the reserve handle bridel being too short so that when I pull the handle the bridal is actually pulling on the still-pinned reserve container and actually making it harder for the pins to pull through and release the outer container...)
So anyway, I get the thing out on the second, slightly panicked tug. I don't even take the time to recoil my arm or look where I'm throwing - I know exactly where I was that reserve and it's out behind me because I'm now about 75 feet above the lake and headed straight for shore! At this point I actually had a split second to check out what I was going to hit and it looked like I was going to be *just* inside the water's edge (good) but also headed right toward a metal railing fence that extended somebody's property line 15 or so feet into the lake (not so good). I felt my reserve inflate and tug me back almost immediately. In fact it pulled tight and inflated so quickly that I was a bit surprised. I was more or less flying straight and evenly toward shore and maybe 50' or less up when the reserve pulled tight. I had pulled right brake because I thought I was going to have to steer away from the fence and I hadn't been positive I was going to get any help from my reserve any time soon. Actually, now that I was out of the spiral I would have been in bettter shape had I just kept my brakes in hand and flown my wing back towards deeper water. But since the idea all along was to chuck the reserve and as I exited my deep spiral at 200' I thought I might actually like to have it out anyhow it was a fine decision to throw it then...
My wing turns out toward the lake and begins to downplane but it actually is pulling me away from that nasty metal fence so I let it go. Although this increases my downward velocity I'm fine with that and hit the water a second later. I can just touch my feet to the bottom and the landing was gentle (although, had I downplaned into a solid object at this speed it probably would have caused injury.)
It was amazing how quickly my legs became entangled in the lines of my glider! Even though I was pretty much just standing there trying to get my radio off and into the boat which quickly arrived. Rulo and I were laughing so hard - and the video that my friend Thomas took from shore is pretty epic!
So, all in all I learned a TON. I know that my surge control timing is still late and I can't wait to practice more full stalls, spins, heli's and frontals over water. I feel really good about controlling asymetric collapses as I have had many at this point. I also feel good about spin appreciation turns as the surge out of these is much less violent than from a stall or negative spin. I know I have an issue with my harness reserve container/handle that needs fixing. And, I know that a SAT is actually going to be an easy maneuver to do on my wing. Sweet!
Oh yeah, and yesterday I did another full stall, this time with Rulo watching and guiding me over my radio. My right hand accidentally came up a bit right when my body fell back and under the wing and it put me into a perfectly flat and stable helicopter for several revolutions! Ha! But that's another story...