Just got back from 6 day live aboard trip diving the GB reef North of Port Douglas. Had my kite gear with me, as you do, and the captain said bring it along you might get to use it. Well let me tell you, the reef is kite heaven but you have to have two things. At 50k's from shore, the trade winds are constant. I mean day and night there were no gusts. The wind did change speed over time but no quick drops or increases so that is great. Also there is no land in sight so nothing to run into that is another plus.
The two things you need is a pickup boat and second is faith that nothing in the water wants to eat you.
Both came in handy on one day of kiting as I only had a 10 metre kite and the wind had dropped down to 15knots and I soon found myself about 1k downwind of the boat and they still had not sent out the tender to get me so I was forced to put the kite down in the water as the sign that I wanted a pickup. Well let me tell you, it was a not a good idea to have just dove at the area ealier and seen several white tip reef(not to dangerous) and a couple grey whalers(please don't be attracted to me). Longest minutes in the water ever.
As a side note, I did find out that when I first launched my kite from off the dive boat, everyone on board watching were happy to tell me that when I jumped in with my board and bar, a big barracudda that had been hanging in the shadow of the boat shot out to me to see what I was. Damm glad I did not know that little info earlier.

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Originally posted by nebbian

Lots of biteys out there hey!

When you're out there it's a different world, as you probably found out... everything's bigger, there's so much life in the water, and the phrase "Nature red in tooth and claw" really came to my mind when I was out there a couple of years ago.
After the initial shock of seeing sharks that were bigger than I was you learn to just go on your merry way. You don't bother them, they don't bother you. Body language is important, they won't touch anything that looks at them and doesn't panic.

Predators like that are curious by their nature, we attracted all manner of things by having a collection of flashy things on the end of a line, you'd be amazed at what came up and had a look.

If you're worried, make sure you don't have any shiny chrome bits on your kite/bar/harness

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Hey nebbian,

It's all OK you know all this (and you believe in it), but the big question is:

Do the sharks and other predators know and, most important obey, those rules