Sunday the wind was un-real today....

Sunday April 18, 2010

Ruth, Bebe and I spent the day working around the house. At one point Mark and Carole Strauch rode by on their bikes with their stand-up paddle boards on the cart behind. The day was warm and clear and beautiful. Then Al drove by. So did Michael D. and Gabor and Tundi. Everyone wondered if the wind was going to come up today. Who knew.

At about 2:30 I saw a few kites in the air at Belmont so I grabbed my stuff and walked down to the beach. When I arrived there was a little wind but not much. In this shot looking West there were a few kites in the air.

Looking South/East there were a few more. Nothing spectacular. I brought Big Mama and my F-One 13 because Kyle possibly had a lesson and was going to use The Boss. I kept going back and forth about what to rig. I chose the 15. I also decided I was going to ride my twin tip because I still needed to fix my foot strap. By the time I had rigged the wind started building and the sand started flying so I texted a few guys to tell them that it was blowing over 18 and this could be good.

I was going back and forth near Dog Beach when Mark came up and we started playing near the pier. At one point I pointed to the back of Chaffee Island and that's all it took. We took off for the breakwater wall.

It was one long tack from the pier to just before the wall when I made a jibe and went in the port direction. That's when I saw the AquaLink right behind Mark. I pointed and thank god there was no accident. Crap was that scarry.

After that we headed back. At first we thought the wind was dying, but by the time we got back to camp it was "Crazy Wind."

The amazing thing was that the Wainman 15 was amazingly stable even though I had it totally de-powered. The trick was no one was around to catch my kite. I noticed Rijk getting ready to go out and I don't know how he did it but he grabbed the 15 with his left hand as he held his bar with his right. I ran over and grabbed the kite and he went out.

Choppy and wind blown. It's all in this picture.

Here are three big air jumps. One of these days I'm going to get a motorized camera and really get the apex of the jump. This shot of Henry, like all of them, are "press and prey."

Then it was Dan turn in the air....looking good.

Then Rijk getting off the deck. It's interesting how different the body language is of the guys jumping.

Dan comes in and is helped by Henry. At that instant Steve Lee and Al knew there was a problem.

In a split second Aaron was having a problem with his kite and he let the chicken loop go and the safety line held. Unfortunately it ended up on the fence of our future bathrooms, but luckily there was no tear or rip in his kite. The safety of the new equipment proved itself today.

Al was nice enough to take this shot of the beach gang. From the left: Rijk, Mark, Darrin, Dan, me, Sigfried, Henry and Steve. What a great group of guys to kite with.

I can't believe this is my own son. Dan is riding his bicycle being pulled by his kite. We de-rigged on the grass median because everything was wet and sandy.

At the end of the day no one knew what tomorrow might bring....except Gabor. He knew it was going to be epic two days in a row.