Kiteventure

When you have the opportunity, you just gotta take it. Upon returning to Hampton, the wind still looked up.  James and I pulled on our wet wetsuits and gave it another crack.  The wind was pretty ordinary though, and we were over fighting it, so after a few runs on the surfboard, we both gave up.

Alwyn offered to pick us up from St Kilda, so James and I jumped at the chance to do a downwinder.  Wind was just enough - going between 15 to 20 knots.  We headed off and it was fairly light from Hampton to just after Brighton, so a lot of work was going into the kite.  After Brighton we got to check out a yacht race and the wind picked up to make it a lot easier to make headway.  About 5 skydivers sailed down into Elwood, which was great to watch.  Mucked around with riding some small waves closer in to Elwood, I can see how much fun it would be to be on a wave with the surfboard - once I've got this gybing deal nailed that will be the next challenge. Pulled into St Kilda very happy to have made the most of the day. James and I at the end of the race. Gybing 1 in 3, crashing the other 2 in 3 Normal chaos in St Kilda James landing the kite

James and I hit Hampton at 9:30, hoping for a big day on the water.  There was a nice 18 knot breeze blowing so we quickly setup.  Got out on the twintip and quickly felt pain in my left foot - overdoing it last weekend resulted in some kind of strain in my foot.  I'd taken Tarren's surfboard down so I quickly jumped onto that, which let me go upwind a fair bit easier and removed the pain entirely.  Throughout the session I changed boards 5 or 6 times, depending on how strong the wind was. I made some good progress with the surfboard, I learnt to take the back foot out of the straps pretty much all the time and was able to gybe about 1 in 3 turns.  Gybing is hard - I tried a couple of different variations, transitioning feet before changing direction and after.  Guess what - its all tricky - particularly with small waves coming in all directions.

Met up with James and Pete down at Aspendale for a fantastic early morning session.  Got a good 2 hours in.Practiced toeside backroll, rotations and got a darkslide in too.

Great conditions at Hampton, had a go at everything until I really stuffed up a toeside backroll, lost my board and kite got tangled up.  I was pretty lucky to get it back up before the rock groyne, but had a bit of a mission to find my board.