Another Adventure

June 6, 2012

We had wind today and another adventure with Dan, Klaus, Gabor, Bobby and me

Photo day, The Perfect Day and June gloom starts

Wednesday was Photo day. Thursday was The Perfect Kite Day. Friday, Saturday and Sunday,

June gloom starts in Long Beach

Wednesday May 30, 2012

Today was Photo Day. I had Traffic School tonight so I decided to take a few shots at Belmont.

Today Naish Kiteboarding brought their motor home full of kites and boards for all to try. Double click and you might see Brittney and Hailey on the right checking out the new gear.

The U. S. S. Iowa was anchored off our beach, being cleaned and it then will be moved to San Pedro.

Then Dan and Susi arrived to kite.

Aren't they cute :)

Dan went out and pulled off a lot of jumps, back rolls and other tricks. 

I think I lucked out on this shot. Susi told me how to anticipate when she was going to do a trick

Bobby Bluehouse was out on his huge finless surfboard. Looking good Bobby

Trevor Nelson was out today too.

Unfortunately I didn't have my haze filter on today (tee hee) but I did like Dan's action.

Just messing around seeing if I could get three pictures side by side. I just couldn't get the spacing right

Thursday, May 31, 2012

A fantastic day of kite boarding. One could say "Perfect"

Here's the wind graph for today. Because the web-camera was down I started texting guys around noon about the wind building. I also had to get off the water early for the second class.

I rigged and went up to the pier alone. Once there the wind was so good that I went past it and then headed for the bait tank, that's at the east end of the breakwater. Then I headed for White Island and "playing in the waves" while heading back to the pier.

That was about the time that Klaus blasted by my on my left side. Together we continued going port past the pier then went starboard past Chaffee Island. Once past the entrance to the marina Klaus signaled that he wanted to head toward the U.S.S. Iowa.

That Iowa looks OK in this photo from the L.A. Times, but the ship was anchored miles off of Belmont. I kept following Klaus and after about 20 minutes it never seemed to get any closer. So I signaled to him, "Cut, cut. Let's go to Seal Beach." Which is what we did.

We ended up kiting with Gabor, Brian and a few other Seal kiters. Wow is that water is warm at the end of the San Gabriel river. After a while we headed back to Belmont. There was a group of us sitting on the beach that included Omar, Jamie, A'lan, Klaus, myself and a few other guys. Omar  gave his Canon camera to Jamie and here is the fantastic result.

A great kiter captured by a great cameraman with a great camera and lens. Fantastic job!!!

June GLOOM

This is the wind graph showing what little wind we've had on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

This week Ruth and I are packing for our trip. We start in France and end in Italy for Luca and Monica's wedding.  Sara and A'lan will be living in our house and taking care of Bebe & Harley, and maybe a little kiting. So I may not have a blog up-date for a while.
See you on the water in July :) 

New Canon SX 30 Camera

May 22, 2012

Pictures from Belmont with my new Canon SX30 camera

Klaus came over today with two new North kites. He wanted to use both the 12 and 14 so he could make up his mind which kite he wanted to purchase. He had used the 12 the week before and said it was a "Jumping Machine."

This is what the 14 looked up in the air.

There were a lot of jumps to choose from here are a couple

                                                                           And he just kept on jumping.

While Klaus went to pump up the 12 I grabbed a shot of Brian Kendor roaring by Belmont on his new race board. 

In this shot Brian and Gabor Vagi are going starboard heading for the breakwater. The other day Brian and Gabor went all the way up to Angels Gate opening near Cabrillo Beach.

Dan showed up with his new Litewave directional board. You can check it out at http://www.litewavedesigns.com/index1.html, or www.facebook.com/litewavedaveturner?ref=ts

Dan has no problem pulling off a lot of tricks. What's tough is getting the right frame of the jump. I need a camera like Klaus's or Jamie's. But for now it's just fine.

In the mean time Klaus grabbed a bigger board and kept on kiting with the 12.

At the end of the day Klaus had a cold one with his new friend Maria, who is new to our area.

Dan never likes to stop kiting but what can you do when there's no wind.

At the end of the day Dan and Jamie Trent chat about the sport. Today Jamie had his best day ever kite boarding at Belmont. Jamie will be bringing his big Canon SLR to the beach. Be ready to do some tricks for him

There's nothing like a beautiful sunset to end the perfect kite day. OK so it's not that beautiful but it's the end of the story.   Hope to see you on the water soon.

Omar the pro photographer...some shots

Saturday March 31, 2012

Omar, our pro photographer friend, took some recent shots at Belmont

It was an interesting day on Tuesday when Omar (http://omarnazif.smugmug.com/) came to the beach with his camera. There was a latino video being shot on the ramp and one of the guys was throwing potato chips in the air trying to get the seagulls in the shot. That's what this is??

As an amateur photographer I found it interesting Omar calling out to me "Hey Jim look over here." I'll file this away to be used on all of you on the beach this summer.

I have to thank Klaus for this shot. I remember taking one of him dragging his left hand in the water. When Omar was pointing his camera at me I thought "I'm going to try this." It worked.

Omar has an amazing eye as you can see in the gallory of pictures on his web site. He was able to get the only jump I could actually pull off. The wind was pretty low and this was as good as it got.

A few days prior Omar came down and shot my son Dan and his friend David at Belmont.

This shot of Dan in the clouds is fantastic. Double click on it to make it full screen.

These are all kite tricks Dan can do. A back roll

Big air.

An over the shoulder.

This is David doing a one handed extension.

And a rail grab.

Lastly, there has been no wind for the past two days so Ruth decided it was time for Spring Cleaning. Tonight we finally got the Dining Room and Living Room re-arranged and cleaned. Yes even I have had to learn how to operate a vacuum cleaner and a dust rag. All is good :)

Sunday is great again, and the week was good too

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Clearing winds hit Long Beach again. This makes two Sundays in a row. We have also had a great week of kiting. Five out of the past seven days.

Check it out, another un-real kite day.

Dan arrived at the house around 11:30 and was ready to kite. Ruth and I on the other hand were only on our second cup of coffee. And we had most of the Sunday Times to go. WHAT??? I'm a diehard as long as it's warm and wonderful. OK, I'm spoiled.

Then I started feeling guilty that Dan was down there with no support group. As I walked across Ocean Blvd. I thought I saw Dan walking up the beach. Up, there he was after a meer two and a half hours heading for the launch ramp, in the rain.

I decided to cut acorss the sand because Dan was not walking that fast against the wind and rain. Go figure, it was about three and the wind graph was showing gust to 40 mph.

As I approached Dan I couldn't believe my eyes, there was a boat race going on in the middle of the bay, in raging wind. Good luck.

Dan got his lines wrapped up a;nd we headed for home. I cleared out the garage and hung up his kite to dry. There's always tomorrow.

As Dan and I headed for home I saw Kyle doing some outragious kite tricks very close to someone in the water. It took me a couple of minutes to figure out he was "performing" for a cameraman who was in waist high water with a GoPro type camera on the end of a stick. Hope the shots came out Kyle.

After we got home and Dan took off, Ruth and I headed to the beach to walk the dogs. The rain wasn't over but it was a fantastic sunset. Can't wait for tomorrow.

In closing I had to add this shot of the dogs. Left to right is Bebe, Harley and Lilly, Dan's new little puppy mix breed that he's had for a few weeks. They were a drip taking all three for a walk. Lilly is so curious so she runs from place to place checking everything out. Bebe and Harley in the mean time are just along for the ride..... or walk.