Three Good Days

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were good northwesterly wind days. Possibly our last good northerly session of the season. Wind gusting up to 30 knots. Not many kiters got out to take advantage of the wind. The first day I started off with my 9M Crossbow and when I came in Jeff was just arriving and I let him take it out for a while. Unfortunately he had a mishap with it that leads me to emphasize a point to all kiters reading this blog. If the kite looses power or crashes into the water and is about to restart or power up in the high power zone, you must depower the kite or you run the risk of blowing it out. The sudden powering up can be more than the kite can handle. With the bow kites you can completely depower them by pushing the bar away but with traditional kites you will have to pull the safety. It is a pain in the neck because probably 90% of the time you can get way with it. But that tenth time you will do serious damage to your kite.

Tueday Scott and I did a session at the other end of San Carlos near the condos Pilar and had fun with the waves and all the space. Didn't take any photos there, so here is one from Wednesday back at "the kiddy pool."

Still no Wind

We are having day after day of very little wind. The water has warmed up to 75 degrees, but what good does that do us? There have been some Portuguese man o wars seen already. The fishing of dorado has started in earnest and lots of reports of dolphins, whales and even orcas. Dave, who runs the San Carlos Sailing School got some good photos of the orcas and as soon as I can I'll get them from him and post them. All of my photos have been wiped out when my hard drive went down. I had everything backed up but I accidently knocked my external hard drive off the table and it stopped working as well. Maybe someday I'll have the data recovered but in the meantime I have a new, totally blank hard drive in my computer. I have a few photos that were still in my camera that I am posting below. We did have one day of steady 15 knot wind that was absolutely wonderful.

Is the Season Over?

I've been gone for a while, went up to Tucson, and just got back Tuesday night which meant that I was here for the first good blow since I left. Scott and I both had good a good day on 9M kites. I tried to use the 11M GK Sonic but it was like work. No more. I've had it with that kite. It was blowing 12 to 22 and should have been perfect conditions. In a lull or if I swing under the kite too far on a jump or transition the kite starts to fall backward and if you pull the bar in to power it up it just gets worse. You actually have to push the bar away to power it up in a lull. That is crazy. I already fly it slightly more depowered than what I've read is correct because it still seemed over-sheeted. It is sluggish compared to any other kite I fly. Anyone want a barely used kite for half price? Lots of people on the internet say that it is the best kite out there. The Cabrinha Crossbow is much more fun and has much more range and power and smoothness.

Enough ranting about a bad kite. Better I should be ranting about the wind, or lack thereof. I am told that there was very little wind for the week that I was gone and now the prediction doesn't call for anything but light southerlies for the next week. According to windguru they are having better wind a little south of here, at Altata. I think that they used to have a Red Bull King of the Air competition still further south at Puerto Vallarta in June. It may be time for a road trip.