Just a quick note of warning to the winter kiters about our fantastic sport. Johnny Geyser and I charged out to the artifical reef wednesday arvo (Nyall had the place to himself for an hour or two before and was ripping apart the 3-4 foot quality waves and 20knot NW winds and came in when we went out at 5pm., John was out on a 8m and I was out on my 12 X3. We had a great fun 3/4 hour session, it was getting dusky and a SUPER BIG BLACK front was comming in very slowly, I should have gone in to the beach to be on the safe side, but the wind was a pretty average 20 knots. In a split second out of no-where I was super overpowered ,so much so I was fully depowered and just parked my kite on the surface of the water and had to slam it into the water to stop myself taking Off, a second later I was hit with a massive gust that just about winded me instantle(my kite was face down on the water, I instantly felt for my quite release,(I reckon there would have been a look of PURE FEAR on my face) as the kite was taking off backways into the sky with me being pulled incrediabley strongly I released my kite with one hell of a SNAP. Boy the thought of being LOFTED at that moment wasn't a pretty thought, especially with the kite flying backwards off the water. NO worries all ok , drifted to beach 100m away, John ran down to help with my downed kite in the surf and all ended well. John said that when the squall hit his 8m kite, the wind did a 180 degree turn instantly as the squall hit(hence my kite taking off backwards)he was kiting towards the beach the next second he was kiting out to sea. All he saw of my kite was it was rippling weirly just above the water as the squall raged. Fantastic, weird and wonderful. The moral of the story, Rig small, and get the FARK off the water when the black bitches come through on anything 10m or larger. Also we we kiting 150m off the beach so had a HUGE margin for error.

Jonathan Keys

Ry, Dale and me were off Scarbs same time slashing it up. Spotted the black mother eary and got in with our gear away just as it hit. All i can say is you didn't want to be out in it...HOWLING.[}:)]

Hey Gstar, I was out there at Scarborough and also came in just before that cloud hit, it was a very strange circumstance, the wind dropped to about 12 knots so I only just got in on my 9metre, landed my kite, saw the black cloud coming with the rain about 1km out, whilst trying to dry off at our car in the pouring rain, the wind not only picked up at a great rate of knots, it swang from the SW in a matter of seconds??? very bizare!!!