Wednesday Hookie

I punched the clock a hair early (is 1630 early???) to get to the beach -

The wind was pushing ALL DAY - except when I got to the beach - the NOAA anemometer at Gulfport Harbor read 9 - 17 during the period I was out, but I think I had less at the Pink House Beach. I think I had 8 - 12.

Crossbow 16, Wide and Flat Yellow board and away I go!!!

Bye bye stress!!!!

Boosting

Punched out a bit earlier than normal - had to - such a nice day and the wind was cranking!!!!

Have I mentioned I LOVE THIS KITE!!!!!!? The pic shows a jump with 12' of air - and this wasn't even the biggest air of the day. Smooth power and loft, and nearly endless depower make this an extremely useful kite down here on the Gulf Coast with the gusty winds.

I read 18 mph on my windmeter and I recorded a max speed of 26 mph on the GPS! Maybe more wind like this on Saturday.

More Kiting Pictures because it was that much fun!

The blurry one would have been the 5h!t -

FINALLY!!!!

The wind and my timing converged today -

Usually I see the wind from my office window, and I have to keep on working. Or - I'm not working and the wind is not up. This problem was compounded by the fact I had a 2011 Cabrihna 16m^2 Crossbow, a 2011 CrazyFly Raptor and a recently finished lightwind kiteboard all sitting in the garage staring at me and planting images of perfect conditions and me ripping the heck out of the water with these tools...

Ahhh to go to me happy place...

No need to daydream today - right at 1300 the wind jumped from 8 mph to 11 mph and with that, La launched me and with barely a whitecap in the water (see the picture with the board I made in use - smooth water) I was cruising! The big Crossbow was incredible!!!!

I rotated out the boards and the CrazyFly Raptor was also a winner! The combination of the Raptor, the Crossbow and the wind (by that time 13-16 mph) made for some wicked high jumps - nothing crazy - 12' vertical with 20' across ground.

We stayed most of the day at the beach - I haven't been this sunburnt or this sore for months!!!!

And I can't wipe the smile off my face - it's good to be stoked again!

Skunked Again -

Left work at a reasonable time yesterday.

The flags up on the flagpoles were showing decent winds.

By the time we got to the beach, the wind was down to 6.5 mph avg.

We chilled out (literally - the temperature dropped pretty quickly) on the beach until all of us except Marlon (who was running around burying his plastic animals) were pretty cold.

It was a pretty low tide too.

Oh well... I'm not off to a good water time record this year.

Thursday Kiting Session

It's rare that I get to punch out of work AND there just happens to be a nice South-Easterly breeze. Well I got to and with higher wind speeds on the anemometer, I got compelled to kite.

Brought out the trusty old Naish V4 16 m^2 and ripped it up!!!

Talk about stress relief - there are other ways to kill stress, but besides tearing up a rippable wave, this is one of the better, more efficient ways of doing it.

With the pace of work these days, sometimes I feel old, worn down and generally numb. But I didn't today ;)

Too much to resist...

The wind on Saturday was good - good enough to kite, but we had other agenda items to take care of.

The wind on Sunday was better, and despite the oil on the beach, I dragged the family out and logged some hours.

I didn't see any oil on the surface of the water, but there were pancake to dinner plate sized blobs on the beach. Had to clean some off of my 16.

The kids and I did play around in the water (wind swell pushing in) and we didn't come out all oil covered.

More luck I guess. But I REALLY needed this kite session. I felt the grumpy old man in me creeping out. Now after several jumps and a few rides on small waves, I'm back to my old mellow self!

A great July 4th!

The Gulf is warming up

It's only mid-April and I'm kiting in the Gulf of Mexico (felt just like Kailua Bay in June temp wise) without a wetsuit or any other form of rubber on me! Makes you wonder what Hurricane season has in store...

Obviously went kiting yesterday. I was actually so tired when I got back that I couldn't stay awake to blog or sort through the GoPro pictures.

Kiting in trunks alone is AWESOME!!! No more rubber suits for several months!!! I can see the need for longsleeve, lightweight nylon shirts very soon to prevent torching, but those are easy and more digestible than wetsuits.

Good wind! Solid 13-17 with puffs into the 20s! Nice!

Mathematically speaking, it was only a matter of time before I got a jump recorded. This one wasn't a record breaker in hang time or a nose bleeder in height, but still is a moment frozen in time of kite assisted gravity cheating flight.

Gulfport ain't a bad place after all (they just need to have a good surf shop and a shuttle out to the barrier islands that caters to surfers).