Numbers to remember.............four out of five, four to six, three here-six there.

There are three of us that are pinching ourselves this evening because we had a great time kiting and didn't expect it. Mark Strauch, Naji Faour and I were able to take advantage of the wind and got to go out and play today. If you have been keeping track, it has blown four out of the past five days. Yes we got skunked Saturday, but you have to expect that this time of year. It's winter and it's going to be hit and miss sometimes.

The wind started coming up a little after three and since Ruth wasn't feeling very well I just couldn't bail until I got her settled into bed. As soon as she was comfortable I raced out the back door and down to the beach. The time was now about 4 o'clock. A few minutes after I got there I saw Mark coming up the Claremont ramp. I was glad to see a buddy to go out with.

We both started rigging and then came a little snag. For those that read about dumping my kite yesterday, I didn't realize there was going to be a problem undoing my lines. Even though I had unrolled and rolled them back up last night, the lines got very tangled when I was rolling them out today. It really teed me off since Mark got out first and he got a few reaches on me before I got out to join him. Calm down Jim, it's going to be OK.

Much like yesterday, the best wind was out a ways. Mark and I were like two kids playing on the water with the wind. I wanted to play in the surf and Mark went up to La Palapa for a little adventure. After a while he came back down to the Granada ramp where we both went down the surf line and then headed for the back (East) side of Chaffee Island. We had a little route that we were doing, back and forth. We even pulled off a few passing hand slaps and Mark was going toe-side. Something he learned down at La Ventana.

At some point I saw Naji standing at the end of the ramp in street clothes. I'm sure he was trying to size up the situation to see if the wind was going to hold up. A few minutes later there he was pumping up his yellow and white12 and then out on the water he went. Like a rocket he headed straight for the oil platform, which is about a half a mile or so off of Seal Beach. And that's where he kited. He was this little speck you could see every once in a while. In the mean time I saw there were six kites out at Seal, so the wind was still great!!!

Mark and I played in our "sandbox" until we felt the wind shutting off. That's when we payed particular attention to where Naji was because we wanted to make sure he was going to get in OK. Otherwise it would be jump in a car and go down to Seal to see if he got into the beach ok. Fortunately he was able to get up wind enough and landed about at the Junior Lifeguard shack and only had a little walk to get back to home base. The three of us were on the ramp a few minutes after 6.

All in all it was a great day, and we hope it will repeat tomorrow. Mark has the whole week off, Al Navas has the day off tomorrow, I think Rijk said he was coming down tomorrow too and I can't remember if Juliano can get away Tuesday or Wednesday. Come on wind, don't let us down now.

After Mark and Naji split I walked home and rode my bike back to the beach just in time to take a few pictures of the sunset. It just blows my mind how beautiful the nights are down here.