Oh Man what a down-winder. An epic adventure for the five of us.....

As I type away on my computer tonight, with the Olympics playing in the background...actually it's women's volleyball competition, I am feeling pretty tired. Today was an epic down winder.

Here's a little back story, yesterday a couple of guys were wondering if there was going to be any adventures. Unfortunately I said "I had to drive up to Hollywood and had to be off the water at about 4 o'clock. No chance for any excitement." Boo hoo.

This morning Mark Stauch called and asked what was going on today. I said Klaus and I were thinking of going to Sunset. He said "Count me in." I called Klaus and he said he wanted to go further, to Huntington. I said "Great!" I called Mark back and he said "OK." Then I called Dan and he said "Pass" because he and Steve would be at Belmont late. I said "No problem." Then I called Matt Naigus. I left a message. Then I called Juliano Calil, he was on board. When Klaus arrived at around 12 we drove his car down to Huntington and while driving back Matt returned my call and said he wanted to go. I said "Great." We had filled the car quota.

Some where around 1:30 we all met up at the Claremont ramp.

Here we are just before we took off. L-R Mark Stauch, Matt Naigus, me, Klaus Schulz, and Juliano Calil. What a great group of guys. Thank you Chad Belteau for taking the picture. We took off at about 2 o'clock.

If you look at the wind at 2 it wasn't that great. We tried to get up wind and warm up. At one point Klaus came by me and said, "I need a bigger board." I knew the board he wanted was the one I was on. Sorry Klaus. Klaus and Juliano had to walk up wind and re-launched, then we headed for Seal Beach.

Once at Seal we rode the waves and played around as usual. It was fun just playing. Then I saw Juliano's bar just fly out of his hand while we were kiting. Crap what was that? He finally got in under control. Then we got back to having fun and then he crashed again. What's going on?????

Klaus, Matt and I came in and dropped our kites to help Juliano. We had to undo the mess of his lines because they were in a ball. Finally we got that under control. We want to thank a Marine from San Diego that provided us water as we were doing all of this stuff and to John Fitzgerald for coming over to say "Hello." Then finally we left Seal.

Next we set out sites on Surfside/Sunset. Actually this chapter of the adventure was easy. Once at Surfside we rode the waves and I did a big "HI FIVE" with Martin Zoldano. He pulled off a 720 revolution with a handle pass. Wow, that looked great. I didn't realize he was riding on a North too.

We had a great time riding the waves and jumping. Then all of a sudden I saw Klaus skimming across the water like a skipping stone. His kite was pulling him full force across the water like a baby doll. We all came to his rescue and went up on the sand to assist. Who should be there straightening out his lines was Martin Hubert. Thanks Martin for catching my kite.

Klaus had broken his de-power line so we had to improvise. Juliano tied a few "knots" to fix the problem. When we launched Klaus he had no power so unfortunately he had to come back and take a few knots out. Thanks Juli, but too many knots.

The next leg was actually the biggest challenge of our down winder, going from Sunset to Huntington. After we left Sunset I was in third place. Klaus and Juliano were ahead of me by about a city block, Mark was behind me and Matt, where was Matt? At some point Juli and Klaus went port and headed for Mark. Matt was at the shoreline and I was "out to sea."

I guess at some point Mark came out of his bindings and Klaus rescued him. In the mean time Juliano rode the fine line between Matt and me. He said he was watching both of us in case anything happened.

By the time the five of us hit Huntington we were pretty tired. I landed first because I knew where the car was. Matt followed. He landed my kite and then I landed his. I think the funniest thing that happened was when we landed was there was a group of about 8 Asians (Sorry I think they could have actually been from Hawaii) on the beach. As I walked by a girl said, "You know you could actually be from another planet (with those kites)." I said, "Yeah, we are, we came from Long Beach." They all laughed.

Klaus and I hiked up the hill to PCH. I stood in a vacant parking space to save it and Klaus ran to get the car. He told me that while he was going up the street for his car, still wearing his spring suit and harness, this guy said, "Hey buddy the water is the other way." Klaus I'm sure was thinking thoughts I can publish.

Once parked we de-rigged our kites and piled into Klaus's car. I think we left Huntington at about 6 P.M. and the wind was still ragging. Klaus didn't want to leave.....but it was time.

We packed up our gear and headed back to Belmont. Klaus was hoping to go out once more. He raced up PCH and we got to Belmont to find out there was no wind. We drove out on the ramp hoping that Chad could take our ending picture and discovered none of our stuff was there. Chad said, "Dan took it a few minutes ago." So we headed home.

Here's the "BEFORE."

Here's the "AFTER." Look at those happy faces. Thank god Klaus cooked a number of his famous German "burgers." Notice no bun. They were great!!

Thank goodness that Klaus had a car big enough for all our gear. Five boards (including Matt's surfboard), 5 kites and 5 guys. Oh, by the way, don't forget the beer.

Here is my attempt at taking a timed picture. OK, it sucks.

I think our next challenge is kiting to Newport or further.
Anyone want to go?????????????????/