Oct. 5th thru the 10th. It's been foggy in Long Beach and other things too

Ohhhhhh... it's been foggy here for the past two days, but it blew yesterday and it was fun too.

Tuesday morning, Oct. 11th:

Klaus called yesterday from Illinois and said he will be back on the water on Friday. And Dan and Kristin are back from Maui and are coming over tomorrow to tell us how their trip was. In the mean time I've had a chance to use Klaus's Core 17 twice. What a power machine. I think if I use it again I'm going to try the lighter setting for the bar pressure. Holding that big kite is tough in 18 mph wind for a two to three hour session.

Monday October 11.... A'lan takes his second lesson

I got down to the beach today a little after 2 and noticed that there was a deep fog layer at the ramp. You could hardly see the island on the far left. I talked to Bart Miller (So.Cal. Kites) and asked him if he had an opening for A'lan today. He said "Come on down." I went back to the house and brought A'lan, our daughter Sara's boyfriend, back to the beach.

He got right into his lesson by practicing how to be pulled up while on the water.
I went over and started rigging and got this shot of Hank and Susi chatting on the beach with the fog in the background. I went out on my 12 and my Becker surfboard. I wanted to get a refresher of being on a board with the Oahu trip two weeks away.
I stayed pretty close to shore and noticed that Bart had A'lan and the other student were getting a body dragging lesson so I came in. Then Bart put A'lan into the foot straps. This is within the first hour of his second lesson. Now that's on the fast track.
OK he reverted to some old snowboard or wakeboard training and rode the board sideways. But he did really well for only being his second lesson.
A'lan and Sara had to fly to Seattle and their plane was departing at 5:30 so Bart said goodbye and hopes A'lan will make it back to Belmont soon.
In the mean time I went back out until the wind died and while I was wrapping up on the launch ramp I grabbed this shot of a cargo ship being engulfed by the fog. Pretty cool.
Later I took Bebe and Harley for a walk and caught a jogger going up the bike path as a future kiter was flying his foil trainer kite.

Thursday October 6th, my buddy Russ flew into town and wanted to kite

I got a text this morning that my friend Russ was going to fly in today and he was wondering how the wind has been. I said it's a crap shoot but come on over and we'll see what happens. It actually turned out to be a pretty good session. You can see the sand is still wet from the rain yesterday and the city is starting to rake up the junk from the L.A. River. The water quality wasn't bad, considering.
When we were rapping up our gear Kyle and Sidney happen to be playing on the ramp. Aren't they cute.
Kyle reciprocated by taking our picture. Russ looks pretty good for getting up at 3 A.M. and flying in from the East coast.
We finished off Russ's visit to a trip to Me Soo Hungry. OH MY GOSH!!!! What a great meal. Left to right; Russ, me, Ruth, Sara and A'lan. Russ flew home to San Francisco in the morning. Hope we get wind on his next visit too.

Wednesday Oct. 5..... WE'VE GOT RAIN

I got back from my doctor appointment at about 5 P.M. and headed down to the beach because I saw a few kites out so I thought I would grab some shots.

James on the green Naish is getting some pretty good air considering. I wonder if he's heard of the "Ben Franklin Effect"??? Just kidding.

As I headed home I was hoping there would be some clearing winds tomorrow. And there were.
I had to end this blog session with my wonderful wife Ruth cuddling the three dogs. Loki is the blond one, Harley is in the middle and Bebe is at her feet. I wonder what they were watching, "Dog Whisperer"?????

9/29 thru 10/3, Skunk. wind, skunk............ make up your mind

September 29th through October 3rd, another week of wind and no wind

Skunk, Wind, Skunk...make up your mind

Thursday September 29, 2011

Klaus and I headed to the beach today hoping that it was going to blow.

We got to the beach just in time to assist a kiter and his wife, both from Canada, who just got stung by a stingray. I thought that they had left the area. According to Bart Miller he saw a kiter recently hit on both feet. In all my years here I've never heard of that.
The time stamp was a little after 4 o'clock and I think I was getting desperate. I grabbed Klaus's 17 and went out. Thanks Klaus for the shots.
Sure there's a big difference between a 12 meter kite and a 17, but wow this Core is great!!!
I dropped his 17 in the water on a jube so I just kept kiting to dry it off. You never want to bring a friends kite back all wet. I had a great time on his Light Wind Core.... thanks Klaus.

Friday September 30, 2011

We were hoping Friday was going to be better than yesterday. Hmmm????
Alan held up his wind meter against the ominous clouds. It doesn't look good today.
Look at the wind graph at 4 o'clock. Klaus was able to get out and get some air. This made the wait worth it.

And just like that the wind stopped. Christopher came over to tell us about why it all came to a crashing halt.

After I got home I brought our two dogs to the end of the ramp for this sunset shot. They didn't stay put for long. Thank goodness for one good shot.

More to come