I felt a breeze so I texted Gabor

Most of you know that Ruth is out of town. She and a group of her friends flew up to South Lake Tahoe for a few days, so I've been pretty much on my own. There was no wind either Sunday or Monday. That's the bad news. The good news is last night Rijk and I went to Tsunami Sushi for Monday Night Football and a few orders of "Sliders" and beer. Mmmmm.

Today the weather was pretty warm and I had two doctor appointments, so I drove Ruth's Corvette with the windows down. I love going down the 605 right on the edge of the speed limit.

After I got home I felt a little breeze while I was covering her car so I texted Gabor Vagi at about 1 o'clock and asking where was the best wind going to be today? After all he has that new fancy cell phone the does everything including ikitesurf wind maps.

He called back at about 1:30 and said he was heading to Cabrillo, then proceeded to rattle off the directions. He said it was fast way to get there. Naturally I got lost and drove around the parking lot looking for him.

As you can see, from Belmont it wasn't that tough, up Ocean Blvd., across the Vincent-Thomas Bridge and then a right onto Harbor Blvd. South. The rest was guessing until I passed the hotel.

The key Gabor gave me was to drive past the Double Tree Hotel and find the beach parking entrance. Then you drive to the other side of the parking lot until you find the lifeguard building which is next to a Spanish styled recreation building. It was easy now that I know how to get there.

This is as close as I can get using MapQuest to get you there. Sorry.

This is what I saw when I drove out to the parking spot. The wind was very deceptive. It didn't look like very much, but the flags were flying.

By the time I got there Gabor was in his wet suit and he was pumping his kite. Obviously I lost some time when I got lost.

He told me to rig on the other side of the lifeguard building, not where he was rigging, and he would see me out on the water.

I took my board, kite, pump and lines to the sandy area on the other side of the building and started pumping. And who should happen to be there checking out the wind, Bill Swiskow. As you may know he teaches both windsurfing and kiteboarding for Captain Kirks in San Pedro and Cabrillo is home to him. Check out Captain Kirks at www.captainkirks.com

Anyway Bill gave me some pointers on how to body drag out once I got the kite up in the air. I really appreciated his help and his launch. Thanks Bill.

This is the interesting part of all of this blah-blah, once I got my nerves under control and I got up on my board, I was amazed at how much wind there was on the outside and how flat the water was. It was not as flat as say Lake Isabella in the morning, but it was a lot flatter than Seal or Belmont.

Then the fun began, Gabor became my mentor and helped me pull off a number of jibes. At one point Gabor and I switched boards and he discovered that the "center" of the board was the front foot straps and that's where I needed to place my feet when I changed directions.

I can't wait to get in some warmer water and some good wind and try some of the new techniques. What a guy that Gabor.

Funny thing, when I printed out the wind graph from ikitesurf, I was surprised that the wind registered so low. My feeling was it was close to 20 mph because I had to de-power my 13 when I was out kiting.

At the end of the day, which was about 4:45, I started getting a little cold and was getting tired. Gabor pointed out the shower and de-rigging area. By the time we used it the old guys that were lawn bowling had gone home and so did the girls.

They had hot water showers there. What a luxury. How can we get this in Belmont; hot water, grass de-rigging area and it only cost me $3.00 to park. Perfect.

We parked in the 10 minute pick-up spaces but they didn't hastle us to move our cars. Winter rules apply here too.

There were four kiters and one windsurfer out today. Gabor is on the left, Scott is looking out his window at the windsurfer that was still on the water. Then there was Bill and me.

I couldn't find anyone to take a group picture so I did a self-portrait and we will have to leave it at that. You notice Gabor and Scott are still talking. That's what we do when we get through with kiting, we talk.

As we drove away I grabbed this sunset shot. Gabor wanted to get some strudel, but all I wanted to do was go in a hot tub and get warm. So I drove to the Belmont Athletic club and went in the sauna and jacuzzi and I finally warmed up.

Now it's time for bed and tomorrow I get the house ready for Ruth. She arrives at 6:45 P.M. and I've got to have the place all "ship-shape." You know what I mean, PERFECT!!!!