What a great day!
It was down to 7m kites for Tim and I at Parham (to do some GPS speed kiting).
The wind was epic up there - gusts were reaching about 40 knots. My 7m took off while still in the bag - I put it down, turned my head around for a few seconds, looked back - and its gone, nowhere to be seen! Then I saw some movement about 100m down the beach - it's my bloody 7m rolling in a bag!
Once pumped up it took 3 sandbags
(about 8-10kg each) to hold it down firmly while I unrolled and connected the lines.
And then there was self launching - I couldn't take the sandbags off or the kite would fly away as soon as I let go of it (not to mention for me to run to the end of the lines and hook myself on
). In the end I ended up self launching with the 3 sandbags on - and guess what - it only took a split second for the kite to throw them off once I turned it to the self-launch position.
And then there was the infamous 1km Parham walk with the kite flying...
I reckon the whole setting up/launching/walking business took us about an hour and a half
(and it was all good fun)
Once in the water though, everything was fine. In fact both Tim and I even felt somewhat undepowered in the 25 knot lulls...But in between the lulls we managed to do some decent speed runs on the mirror-flat water and overall it was a fantastic, fun session and well worth me taking a day off.
Saturdays forcast looks ok as well atm so hopefully can get one in there for all those who cant get out tomorrow...like me. Fingers crossed 
