if its a northerly /ne walk down the beach rig up and ride.
Just stay clear of and swimmer areas ie red and yellow flags,

then do a downwinder till you get tired. Get picked up

repeat till satisfied.

there were about 40 riders doing castaways to coolum yesterday.
very nice wind.

I understand people have a need to be sociable. I understand why people like to share similar interests. I'm curious however what value people get out of kiting so closely together in massive mobs.

Yesterday I was kiting just south of Peregian. The beach wasn't hugely busy but there were the usual complement of walkers and sand castle builders. One chap came by me on a downwinder early on, he had good form and looked like he was having a blast. He waved and we continued on our ways.

I stopped for a while for a bevvy and watched the hordes launching up near castaways. I counted 21 kites. I noticed they all did the right thing and gave the flags at Peregian a wide berth.

Towards the front end of the closely spaced pack were three guys on Rev's. They were riding the little chop there was to good effect with small strapped thrusters.

Just in front of me on the beach were two families. One had two sons and a dad in the water on body boards and the other had two under 5 kids playing in the shallows. Upon seeing the mass of aggressive riders descending upon them, the parents shouted at their kids to make a hasty retreat for the safety of the sand.

They were clearly intimidated. I expect all other beach goers thought it was an attractive spectacle, but would not have gone in the water near the lineup. I can understand why.

Of the 10kms of beach, there were 21 kiters within 300m. Most riders were so close they must have spent a fair proportion of their concentration on avoiding collisions.

So, my first point is that I believe others sharing the beach find these events intimidating and do no favours for our sport.

Secondly, I don't get what people get out of being so close. Do you check out each others form? or what?

Perhaps I'm a little strange in that I like to kite alone (I always self launch and land), and if I'm near other kiters I give them the widest berth possible.

Cheers

Believe it or not that group of 21 kiters pretty much all knew each other and we all personally find it much more fun kiting with mates. Being a small day all the waves were closer into shore and theres no harm in showing the guy next to you your moves. i guess were all too competitive. And becasue we were on Rev's we know that the kites performance will get us out of trouble.

thanks for the info, mates! i will check out all those places mentioned and have a chat with the local kiters before setting up. cheers!

M.G.