Tuesday and Wednesday, Belmont and Seal.

On Tuesday Dan, Jason, Klaus and I met at our Ocean Blvd. "Tail gate" party. We were waiting for the wind to come up. It never did.

After a while Jason had to go...appointments.

By the time we got to the beach Bongo was out riding. Unfortunately he's not a good wind dummy, he's way too light and flys big kites.

After a few minutes Klaus gave up. Since he hadn't gotten any sleep the night before he needed to get home to get some well deserved "shut eye."

Dan and I on the other hand had to get wet. We rigged, went down wind and walked back. Some even had to wash off their kites.


One of the best things of the day was the sunset. The cloud formation and the refection was just sensational. Double click on the picture to see it larger.

That was the end of Tuesday, now let's talk about Wednesday.

I knew Klaus had to drive in from Riverside, Jason couldn't come down and I didn't know about Dan, so we decided to head for Seal Beach.

I got there a little before the wind curve so I took some time to clean Klaus's kite. I had gotten a lot of sand on it at Sunset and Belmont so I wanted to wash is off. John Fitzgerald suggested that I go into business, he knew of a lot of guys that wanted their kites washed and waxed. I said "They couldn't afford me." John retorted, tongue in cheek, "No, kiter's have money, really."

As you can see from the above picture it's a pretty long walk to the beach. Here comes the rules that must be observed; kiters must launch between the two signs, do not come in less than 200 yards in the swim area or the surf area and you must land between the same two signs. The rules are very well explained on Dan Slaters web site http://www.nearfield.com/~dan/sports/kitesurf/beaches/seal/index.htm, then click on "SCKA kiting info." Pleas check out the rules before going to Seal Beach.

Klaus and I were having a great time jumping, and trying to pull off tricks, then he said "You want to go to Sunset?" "No way!" "You want to go to Long Beach?" "Sure." As you can see from the picture the oil platform is a little ways off the coast, but doable.

So what we did was go out past the oil platform and then went port side to pass the platform. WRONG!!!!! What we discovered was the platform causes such a huge wind shadow that we almost couldn't get past it. Then we tried to get past the marina entrance and had to do a little tack to get past it. Once past the marina we were free and clear and heading for Belmont. At some point I was crossing paths with Kyle and we did a passing hand slap, then the wind started dying and we headed back to Seal. Better safe than sorry.

We spent the rest of the afternoon jumping and playing in the waves.

I tried to catch Klaus getting air but could only get someone else. Sorry Klaus.

Some good points and some not so good. The rigging and landing site is fantastic. I wish we had a grass area like Seal. Ok I'm retired and cheap, you have to pay for parking. I would rather walk two blocks than pay money....sorry Seal.

At the end of the day I had to drive to Ruth's brothers house and pick Ruth up. Liz, Randy's wife, was helping Ruth make a dress for a wedding in two weeks because unfortunately Ruth's sewing machine broke down. Thanks Liz, you're the best.