Chasing Wind

One of the problems with wind based sports (Wind surfing, kite surfing, sailing, paragliding, hang gliding, base jumping, pinwheel spinning) is that you're pretty much completely dependent and at the mercy of the mother nature.

This has been the source of some frustration over the course of the last week.

Last Saturday, I happily loaded all of my gear into T's car (T and I are at roughly the same level, along with another newb named M) drove the 75km (roughly an hour) to Waikanae, parked and looked.

The ocean was beautifully calm, not a spec of wind blowing to bother us. We were not happy. We waited for an hour, drove on the beach and, finally, headed back home.

Fast forward to Monday this week (two days ago). Again, I'm watching with eager anticipation the various meteorological websites, the webcams at the various clubs near the beach I go to... I've got my gear packed and ready to go..

I get a phone call about 3:00 from M asking if we should brave the drive during rush hour to get out to the beach. I hum and haw, try to rope T into it, finally decide that it's time to drive out.

Driving through "rush hour" traffic to get to the burbs was surprisingly not as bad as I had expected, a good omen!I pull up to the parking lot to see a car filled with kite gear! hazzah! .. wait. Why isn't that gear on the water.

The two guys standing next to my inform me of my plight. Dead calm. AGAIN! In fact, so calm that the ocean is actually glassy in places. Damnit. At least the two other guys there are nice, so we all decide to get out our trainer kites and practice our kite control. They've never played with a 3m land kite like I have, so we rig up and I let them have some flight time. They get a real kick out of being pulled around the beach with the little kite. The wind is probably 4-5 knots at this point (minimum to fly my big kite is about 12)

Overly optimistic because of the successful 3m kite, i decide to get changed and rig up. As I'm inflating my kite, M shows up, and, despite all common sense, starts inflating her kite as well.

Just as we've finished putting the lines on, the sky opens up and we're rained on. and with the rain comes the dead calm of a nice shower. A few pathetic attempts at getting first my kite then hers up and it's clear there's no way we're getting any big kite time tonight. Defeated, saddened, we pack up the now very wet and sandy kites, go for a dip in the surprisingly warm water and call it a night.

I'll get on the water soon! I'll have photos and videos! really! believe me!