Today was a 10+....WHAT A DAY!!!!!

If you happen to catch the blog last night, you would have seen that the forecast was for good wind today. But who knew it was going to be GREAT wind. Klaus called me this morning around noon and said the wind was coming up and that he was going to pump up his kites at the beach. Unfortunately I was having new garage doors installed and couldn't leave until they were done. What I did do was ask the installers how much longer and the lead guy said, "About fifteen minutes." I said "Perfect." We wrote them a check and I took off for the beach.

I also knew that Bryon Richards, a writer for one of the local newspapers, was coming to Belmont today. He's writing an article about kite boarding and I was going to give him a snapshot about what kiting was all about. What a great day to come down to the camp. Who knew.

As you can see by the wind graph the wind started blowing early. By the time I got there Klaus was out and the wind was ragging. I pumped up my North 12 Rhino and went out. Prior to going out I knew that Joe Wilcox and Klaus wanted to go on an "adventure." By the time I joined them on the water I didn't feel my kite was big enough so I went back to the beach and grabbed Klaus's 16 Rebel. Now I had enough power.

At first we just warmed up and then I saw the signal. Klaus pointed to the oil platform but I didn't see Joe. What a bummer.

By the time we reached the platform we saw Joe racing across the water to join us. Later he said he saw us going for the platform and didn't want to be left behind. Good job Joe.

After we got our bearings we figured it was going to take a couple of tacks in order to get behind Chaffee Island. With the wind as intense as it was and the big ocean swells I think it took us three tacks to get behind it safely. What is neat is once you know you are going to get past the island, and not hit the rocks you relax and start having a lot more fun. As usual once past the island there is a long stretch were the water is relatively smooth and yet the wind is still very strong. Another thing we wanted to do is go as far West past White Island as we could before our kites dropped from it's wind shadow. There were a number of sail boats and power boats up there so we knew we were all right. In this area the water is REALLY flat.

On the way back from White we noticed there was a lot people on the pier. The city was having "Pirate Invasion" days, complete with a real Pirate ship attacking the Pier.

I don't think that Klaus was quite ready to end the adventure so we followed him behind Chaffee once more, then we traversed and headed back to the pier for one more look. Klaus got a number of people cheering him on when he got very close to the pier. I didn't want to get that close so I kept my distance. After getting past the pier we did a down-winder back to kite beach. We stopped in for some liquid refreshment and a little rest.

Here are the three adventure guys: me, Joe and Klaus. The wind was still blowing so I grabbed my camera and took a few shots.

If you look at he wind report and check out the intensity at 3 o'clock you can get a sense that the wind was still raging, and guess what it was going to blow for another three hours. But who knew.

I didn't actually count the number of kites but I would guess there were over 40 kites out today. Did anyone get a head count?????

There was enough wind for everyone. There were catamarans, sail boats, wind surfers and kite boarders. I think everyone had fun today.

It has taken a week so today Klaus was able to use his new F-One Bandit. He was so happy because it had a lot of power for only being 13 square meters. He said "I love my new power machine."

At the end of the day David was putting away his catamaran and we put our kites away too.

All of us had a ball, that's why it was a 10 PLUS day. The wind blew for over 6 hours and everyone had a chance to get out and sail to his hearts conent. L-R, me, Klaus, Rijk and Juliano. Many nations, lots of fun. Today Juliano was able to use his new Rev 16. He was a happy camper too.

Naturally everyone is hoping that tomorrow is going to be a repeat of today. On Sunday morning a number of us are going to Legends sports bar up on 2nd. Street to watch the big soccer game between Germany and Spain. We hope Germany wins because it would make Klaus very happy.

Hope to see you on the water.