Kiteventure

A perfect 20 knot breeze rolled in following a southerly change - headed down to Hampton for a quick session before going to the comedy festival.  Had a magnificent time - stringing together all the regular tricks and really working on my weaker side with jumps and inversed board rotation.  Had a massive smile on my face after this short, sharp session.

Almost the standard trip in Inverloch - from the surf to the inlet.  It is magnificent fun - such a highlight to muck around in the surf then hit the flat water.  There was a small section which was butter soft which Tarren and I hung around in for a while.  Went past Hutch in the inlet - he was doing well - but didn't recognise us. We pulled up in the inlet after about 6 hours of kiting - enough to create wear marks on both my feet.  A very happy pain though !

Wind had picked up to 25 to 30 so I headed in and grabbed my 7m.  Had a fantastic time riding waves, backing off the kite, going toeside and trying to stay on the wave.  Lots of fun as the amount of chop had died off and the surf became cleaner.  I was getting pretty knackered after around 3 hours of riding, and decided to get on a pretty big wave.  Unfortunately I left it a bit late and went over the falls.  The tension went out of the lines and scared me as they were floating around, I didn't want to tug on the kite in case I got something caught on them.  After quite a long hold down I came back up to see the kite on the water, missing one of the centre sections - totally blown out.  It relaunched, and folded in a strange way before - bang - the thing exploded.  A happy end to an average kite that helped me have a few big adventures. It was handy to have the 7 - I will definitely seek a new one.  I think this is part of going out in the ...

At last the weekend we've been waiting for.  Predict wind had forecast that the wind would be best early, so we hit Inverloch at 8am after a 6am start.  Setup on the surf beach and Pete and I were joined by Tarren, Franz, Rod, Wayne and another guy.  The surf was quite big in relation to other places we have been out in.  Headed out on the 10 but I was well powered.  Fantastic fun to be in the surf, but also a little daunting - hard to settle in and do any tricks as there was the constant threat of being hammered.  Franz and Rod on surfboards were going nuts - they showed some great technique.  After a while I was the only guy out - I realised that I was riding fully depowered with my arms well extended - time to exchange kites.

Beautiful afternoon down at Mentone - had Peter, Tarren and James down there for a late afternoon session.  The wind was a little light, then lifted a little to give us all a fantastic sunset cruise.  Got to try Tarren's ozone edge which was a fantastic kite to fly - very simple with fantastic lift and wonderfully stable in the air too - if the safety and depower check out it could well be my next kite.  The switchblade is great but a little too fast for my liking - I tend to get spanked everytime I try some new move as the slightest change to the bar powers up the kite massively.

I can't sing that sites praises enough - it predicted that a wind would come from nothing at 6pm and it did.  Had a beautiful session at Port Melbourne in about 16-17 knots. A beginner was kiting next to the Port Melb yacht club in the very narrow section of beach - I advised him to move up to South Melbourne.  It's amazing that someone would pick such a trecharous section of beach to try to learn in.

Headed down to Hampton after work with Pete. Good fun session in about 17 knots until fairly dark.

A perfect day ! Had a dance off with Tina (I lost !) then headed down to Mentone for a lovely session in 17 knot winds.  Stoked to get a kite in on my birthday.  Did quite a few 720s and 1080s just from a simple backroll - just let it roll on and on.  No other progression - wind was just enough for most of the time so no chance.