Kiteventure

Tarren, James and I hit St Kilda in the afternoon.  Big aspirations of heading across to Williamstown soon evaporated, the wind was just not quite enough - somewhere between 16 and 17 knots.  I tried some of the stuff on my to do list - backroll to toeside/faceplant that just never really worked, riding blind that kind of did.  The tip about putting your leading hand on the back of the bar was a winner, and doing a karate kick and looking down into the water.  Kind of weird but it worked.  I stuffed up heaps of jumps, the wind was just so light that there was not much hold in the jumps at all.  Totally spoiled from the Paynesville trip !  I got one really nice darkslide in, and one howler...back down to 50% !

The magic of Hydralite, bounty and snakes had me back on the water in no time for more awesome wave action.  Nailed some good waves, hit some backloops of the lip and had a spectacular crash while doing a forward loop.  One of the lines wrapped around the top of my finger - which could have been awful, but I managed to slip it off before anything bad happened.  Another invert and another end of the session.  Like always, I'd thought a minute before about heading in as I was getting very tired - that's when dumb shit tends to happen.

We headed to Sandy point to ensure we got enough wind for our final session.  We weren't dissapointed, we arrived and it was howling-probably around 28 knots.  It was blowing south westerly, so the inlet was a bit gusty, we headed to the surf beach and were greeted with perfect conditions. I had a fantastic time in the surf, trying to grab as many waves as possible.  Magnificent fun, nice waves, perfect flat water between them.  I didn't try any crazy tricks, I'm a bit wary of ditching the kite in the waves and getting it destroyed.  Didnt stop me ditching it while turning on a wave, the kite inverted to end the session.

We decided to forgo dinner and hit Paynesville main beach for the last session of the day - at around 630.  The wind appeared strong, but was very dodgy.  There was just enough to get out, and the only place that wind was really blowing was close to Raymond island in the channel.  With boats, piers and marginal wind we packed it up after about 15 minutes.

It finally blew up a little bit so that everyone could get on the water, kites, sailboards, the whole shooting match.  I haven't laughed so much for ages - it was hilarious doing little races, trying to scare people, dodging between kites and sails.  It was a heap of fun - it lasted about 30 minutes but it was probably the highlight of the day.

What a difference a massive upwind machine makes.  With just enough wind and a sector 60, I was able to go upwind and check out a bit more of the lake system.  Its a lot of fun on the board, super stable but very hard to gybe - certainly takes a bit of getting used to.  Also had a challenge upon return, Amelia had ditched her kite, so I had to find her board and return it - a tricky proposition on such a big board.

Through the power of google maps, we found a great little sand spit on the Banksia peninsula that we thought would get some good wind when the south westerly came through.  We took Grant's boat around as backup - which turned out to be a very handy move.  The spot was very fickle - there would be just enough wind to hold a line that would just dissapear - so much so that most of the kiters had to be rescued at some stage during the day. The first session was just enough wind to hold a line, I had to continually look off into the south to ensure enough wind was coming through to stay upwind.