Kiteventure

Just enough wind for the new Switchblade at Beaumaris.  Met up with Grant, Stu and Pete for a sweet session on a beautiful day.

Great early morning session at Brighton.  Wind was north westerly, which made for some great flat water.  New kite is super powered - it gusted up to a bit over 25 and was at times hard to hold down.  Had to go for quick release on landing as the lines are so hard to hold with the waxy coating.

Arrived at Hampton with a steaming 28 knots coming through after a windy night - and there was a surfer out.  Nice little swell and solid wind made me put up the little kite - which was great fun, some nice big airs and lots of waves to ride made it quite an adventure.  Stu and Anthony arrived, after which we did a tour down to Green point - the waves down there seemed even bigger which was fun.  It was nothing compared to the monsters we were out in at Ocean Grove - nice to have a semblence of control back.  Great session after which I was completely knackered.

After an epic day out the day before, we were keen to have a somewhat lower key session.  But that is not what nature had in store for us. We waited for Pete to grab a new board, then headed to Ocean grove to grab some of the 17 knot westerly.  We were greeted at the beach by absolutely massive surf.  It was the biggest surf I'd ever been out in, kind of scary.  I got my new kite up and the wind was fickle - slightly cross offshore - crappy wind conditions for big surf.  Ideally you want solid wind - this was anything but. I did a couple of runs and realised that I was losing ground - not enough wind and the big surf pushing me down the beach.  I decided to do a long run out the back, so I had to jump over some big waves.  Pretty exciting/terrifying - the waves were huge.  I was a little too intimidated to actually surf any of them  - I didn't want to kill my kite.  I took a long tack and again - couldn't make up any ground. After...

The day had been absolutely perfect - an early morning kite, a magnificent day at Bremlea beach with the family, boogie boarding, suping, having a great time with the kids.  The wind was forecast to come in for the afternoon - so the stars were aligned.  What could possibly go wrong ?  A freakin hurricane could, that's what. With the ladies and kids headed to the Queenscliff market, Pete and I had the afternoon to ourselves, with a 25-30 knot breeze on the go.  We checked a couple of locations at Ocean Grove, before making the call to head to Point Lonsdale surf club.  I'd walked past it with Darren a couple of months before, beautiful water and some nice breaks - I thought it would be perfect for us. First impressions were fantastic - strong wind, good surf but with some ominous clouds on the horizon.  We'd been out for our share of storm fronts so it did not appear anything to be particularly worried about.  On setting up the wind felt very heav...

For the Melbourne cup weekend, we had decided on mixing it up a bit from the standard Inverloch 4 day weekend.  We headed to Barwon heads, a place with a few more shops for the ladies and some new kiting locations for the boys. I woke early to a fairly strong north westerly, so I thought I'd give the river a go.  I woke up at 630, checked it out, then tried to wake Pete with an SMS.  No dice as he'd been up playing pokemon!  I waited around until 715, then went solo over to the south of the Barwon river.  Luckily the tide was out a little, so I had a limited amount of sand to set up on.  Wind was intermittently howling through, so I went small kite.  Once up in air, I got the first signs that this wasnt such a great idea.  Very up and down.  Hit the water and it was all over the place, enough wind for a jump sometimes, then I'd have to loop the kite to get enough power to land.  I did about 6 runs before starting to get close to the po...