Easter Sunday with God

[Joe Pires]

This Sunday Morning Ed Lemoine (edypaul) and I took of to fly the St. Johns River together. I had done my ground crew duties and Laura was already out there flying her powered parachute.

While we were pre-flighting she was calling in...Eww, I saw Manatees...I think they are mating...wow 5 eagles just came out of the trees..just having a wonderful time witnessing god's miracles close up.

Ed and I took of and flew down river about 15 miles or so to a place where the powered paraglider students train on an island in the middle of the river. I did see the mud kicked up by the Manatees, but no actual sighting. We saw literaly hundreds of gators and a few "very healthy" specimens in the 9 foot plus range.

There were literally thousands of birds in great flocks. I had two sightings of my favorite the Roseate Spoonbill, whose Flamingo coloring stands out in a crowd.

When we got down to the ppg training site there were 3 or 4 still flying around and another couple on the ground. We did a low pass then circled the island and entered a pattern.

Once on the ground they came up to our birds and started asking questions. Eric Dufour, a world famous instructor and former world class competitor put on a show which very impressively demonstrated the capability of these the powered paraglider. One of his tricks you can find on video is him setting a pair of boots down in a field..then flying down landing in his boots and taking back off. We have met several times and he has a real interest in gyroplanes.

This morning in the email I got the photo digest that one of their pilots, Marty does of every outing and was happy to find this great shot of my favorite photo subject. As usual I am including it in high def, in case you inclined to want it as your desktop image.