Down wind adventure to Huntington

Last night (Monday) we started talking about doing a down winder to Huntington Beach. The three that wanted to do it was Rijk, Kyle and me. So that night I sent out a few emails. The next morning, after a number of phone calls and texts it ended up that 5 wanted to do it.

A guy that wanted to go was Gabor from Seal Beach and since we all wanted to start together we were going to start at Belmont Shore.

At about 2:30 it was all set, the wind was strong enough, so Gabor was going to up-wind from Seal Beach to Belmont, we would get together, kite to Seal pick up two other kiters and then to Surfside and so on. We also knew that Klaus was going to get off work arould 3:30, drive his car and meet us at Huntington Beach and bring us home. Lastly I took my cell phone and Gabor had a marine radio just in case.

In just a few minutes Gabor arrived and was ready to go.

Three of the four were ready to go, Gabor, me and Rijk. Unfortunately Kyle had to work.
And Omar? I think he was warming up on the water.

I gave our plan to Omar and he said he might just go as far as Seal.

I'm guessing the time was getting close to 3 o'clock as we headed out for Seal Beach.

In just a snap the four of us were at Seal Beach. We were supposed to meet up with 2 other kiters that wanted to join the adventure but no one ever joined us. Then Omar got out of the water, this was our sign to move to the next beach.

After doing some kiting at Seal we headed for Surfside. I looked back and didn't see Omar. He went in at Seal and the other two guys never came out to join us.

This is a screencap from Google Earth Pro that Omar sent me. This is what he said, "I spent most my time at Seal and Surfside, and in the lee side of the long jetties, particularly Surfside. It was pretty cool, because it's almost impossible to kite there unless you're going downwind. You can see the construction equipment and piles of sand and pipes at the north end of Surfside, where they are depositing the sand to nourish the beaches. It was cool riding in brown water.

When were going back and forth at Surfside and Sunset I think we were holding off making the big decision of going to Huntington unless there was plenty of wind. So at one point we just started heading south. It was Huntington or Bust.

This was the long part of the adventure. You were basically locked in going down wind. Rijk would sometimes goe toe side and one time Gabor came over to me and he had both of his feet on the middle of the board and said to me "Relax."

Klaus said he saw us coming so he put his kite in the air so we could see him.

We came in just long enough for a picture and for Klaus to grab my kite. His 10 was too small for Huntington and he wanted to kite before we left.

Klaus is going out in the surf as Gabor is coming in to rided the waves.

One of the first things we did was grab a beer....mmmmmm.

These were our mode of transportation; Matt's F-One directional, Klaus's twin tip and Gabor's Jeff Kafka course board.

The next challenge was getting all of our gear into Klaus's car. It was a tight fit but we all got home OK.

We dropped off Gabor at Seal Beach and said goodbye and headed for Belmont hoping there was a little wind left....Sorry Charlie, NO wind at Belmont.

Even though we didn't kite very much at Belmont it was great to be home.

As a closing shot I grabbed this one of Ruth and Dan comparing their full head of hair. I can't complain it but they are proud of their hair. Me too.

Later