Watching from the shore the last 2 days too windy for me.
at brighton 20knts + small windwaves everyone just ripping it making it look so easy.

having to kite downwind with no room and crazy kites all over the place.{melville}

getting seedy swan river water up my nose and getting sinusitis

cant wait to get better

i would also be interested to hear from you the experienced rider as to what it was like when you first started and sharing some of your stacks/ scares / mishaps!

looks like we are talking about different brightons

1. You get to the beach and realise you've forgotten your board
2. You lay out your lines in dry seaweed and spend another 20 minutes getting it all out
3. Your instructional DVD confuses you - especially when they use a different kite or line set up (I tried laying lines downwind and then managed to connect L to R / tangled and my launch partner let go of the kite before I gave the ok... but luckily it crashed just to the left of some broken bottles someone left in the dunes)
4. It takes forever to pack / setup your gear
5. Your kite gets plastered with sand because it's always in the drink
6. No wind / too much wind periods are worse for you (your body forgets what its doing and you're back to square one)
7. Your spreader bar is always riding up onto your ribs
8. You gotta love body dragging and walking back up the beach (and hesitate when your friends ask you what you've been doing on the weekend instead of saying 'kitesurfing' with a smirk that you thought you would)
9. You feel like a chimp doing the 'I want to land' sign.
10. You stress about long swims back with gear in tow (hopefully...)
11. You get home and realise you've forgotten your board.

PS Lessons with AKS crew made it suck a lot less - I could probably add some REAL disasters to the list if I didn't have lessons. Highly recommended!

Harry you have the right idea mate - better to respect the limits and live to kite another day uninjured....as many will attest, you don't progress at all while watching the wind blow the trees from your sick bed.

Persistence is the key, this game is 90% dogged persistence and 10% skill.....just keep plugging away, session after session.....suddenly it all comes together, you'll ride away upwind, kite for hours without falling, come back with a large grin on the dial....then be hooked on checking the wind forecast 5x a day like the rest of us.....

good luck, good winds, Andy

Sounds like something out of that thread about bow kites and the demise of kite skills, or whatever it is. Not that I've looked at the last three pages of it.

GreenPat said...

Sounds like something out of that thread about bow kites and the demise of kite skills, or whatever it is. Not that I've looked at the last three pages of it.

LOL