A close shave over the Lycia World ridge, 900 m take-off, Babadag

Warning: don't scratch low over the ridge in front of the 900 m take-off at Olu Deniz in the early afternoon in the Spring. I was yesterday- 360ing in the broken thermals, trying to carve out every bit of lift after taking off in a sink phase, within 50 feet of the rocky ground - and I had an incident which nearly killed me. Just before this, a couple of times I was yanked into super-violent thermal bullets in a straight forward (not upwards) direction which was really surprising. I couldn't imagine that any wing could fly that fast. This should have warned me to get some height over the ridge before working it, but I kept at it - scratching - like a little dog, snapping at the heels of a dozy bear. My vario log for that flight reads a max of 9.6 m/s averaged over 20sec, but I wasn't in any single thermal for anything like that long, so it was a roller coaster. I was wondering whether the tandem passenger was enjoying herself nearby! The photo below was taken by my dad at this point in time.

Ridge in front of 900m take-off, Baba Dag. I'm the top-left wing.

And then as I circled over the centre of the ridge - WHAM: a tuck and massive asymmetric, then a 180 degree whip-around turn and an out-of-control frontal surge which had me heading direct for the rocky ground. I was watching the rocks coming up towards me, thinking 'I'm trapped in this - no control - and it has bad odds'. I imagined the impact. If there had been any sort of cascading, I'd have collided hard with the rocks and most likely killed myself. But thanks to Lady Luck (and my Gangster) after jabbing on the breaks to break the surge, I swung under the canopy and popped safely over the ridge with a more or less stable wing (see the photo below taken at exactly this point in time) - actually into lee side rotor that needed active piloting, but compared to what I'd just experienced I didn't care.

My wing can be seen skimming through the saddle of the ridge.

I got on the radio to Annie: 'Don't go over the ridge Annie: It's dangerous!'. She had seen the whole thing from further out from the ridge and thought my advice was pointless as she never had any intention of flying close to the ridge.

I looked back, happy to be alive, and a tandem pilot was still over the ridge. Was I just unlucky? Or do they know something I don't? I was told by local acro pilot Mahoney when I landed that where I was flying - low - had three different thermal sources converging on it and this resulted in a lot of mixed air and turbulence. The tandem pilots were flying higher and keeping out of the cauldren.