A little wind on Wednesday, none on Thursday

When I walked down to the beach on Wednesday, I didn't expect much because there was very little wind on Tuesday. So I was surprised by two things: 1) The wind was starting build at about 1 P.M. and 2) There were quite a few kiter's that got the message "there is a possibility of wind today."

So for a Wednesday afternoon, smack dab in the middle of "June Gloom", we are going to get some wind. YEAH BABY!!!!!

I think the biggest problem I have when I go to the beach is what to do first, take pictures for the blog or start pumping. Today I thought, "OK, I'll shoot a few pictures real quick and then put it away and forget about it." Mike Noel was at the camp so we got things down to a science, first I threw him my electric pump for his kite and he threw me his hand pump for mine. We were ready pretty quick.

Dong was one of the first on the water....naturally. But we weren't far behind him.

I had called Klaus at work because he wanted to come down today if it was going to blow. Since it was about 2 o'clock I just figured it was going to blow all day. NOPE!!! By the time Klaus got to the beach, around 4:30-5, the wind had died. We got in about two plus hours, then it just tapered off. The graph shows a little wind after 5, but not much.

Erika decided to drop by Belmont because she was working downtown. She recently purchased two new Best kites and wants to get up on her board. I used to windsurf with her about 10 years ago at Leo Carrillo.


At about 4 Ruth come down to the beach to see what was going on. About the only thing that was happening was a powerboat pulling a water skier that was practicing for the Catalina Ski Race. It's happening here in Long Beach on July 19th. I can't remember what year it was that I skied to Catalina behind Dan Blocker's "Lady In Cement." Maybe 1970...ish. One of his two turbo Chevy's blew-up. He was pretty mad about that. Back then that was my life water skiing. That's how Ruth and I met.

Well that was Wednesday. Today's Thursday, and it was looking promising too. Because of the Catalina Eddy and the haze burning off, there was a little wind, so I grabbed my stuff and met Mike and Bill at the camp.

The three of us pumped up. So did Charles, Bongo and a friend. But about the only thing that was happening was a group wadding in the water.

There we all were waiting patiently for the wind to come up. Even Al and Yoris were waiting.

OK, there was one kiter that was able to get a few minutes on the water, this guy on a foil board. He looked pretty good out there but he was hardly a "wind dummy" for us.

The amount of wind sucked, the wind direction sucked and the duration sucked. Other than that it was a great day.

There was one guy who had enough wind. We have seen this guy before and now he was pushing the envelope. Using his para-glider, which is a very large foil kite, he is now jumping off the sand dunes.

It's now the end of the day and it was time to root on the Laker's. I think my luck has gotten pretty bad because they lost game 4 tonight. Now they are down 3 to 1, with the Boston Celtics looking pretty tough to beat. Next game is Sunday night. Go Laker's!!!