Looked like the wind was finally going to be good on Saturday but naturally I had to work! Sunday's prediction was about the same but a little less, so I hot-footed it down to Mie to ride the southerlies.
Finally arrived about 2pm (have you ever tried to get a wife moving?), got set up and jumped in. Hadn't really inflated the Crossbow enough so it was a bit soft. That's ok cos so was the wind. On-shore wind were enough to get up and riding but meant close-reaches down the beach, trying to avoid the shore when the shape of the bay pushed the land out into the water and desperate attempts to ride upwind when the gusts hit.
Discovered that riding in the wide open spaces of the shallow water after the last wave breaks on the shore is very nice indeed - flat smooth and fast ... however - yes you know what's coming - when you run out of the 2 or 3 inches your riding on, the board just stops. I knew what was coming so was just trying let the speed run off, but ran out of water ... I got pulled off the board in the direction of travel and kind of went down on my arse, backwards but as the kite was on an upstroke, I sort of glided downwind and spun myself around to face the kite, got my feet in front of me and scudded up the beach as I got the kite under control. It could have been bad but it wasn't so I had a good ol' cackle :) and resolved not to do that again!
Gradually the wind picked up just a tad and I had some nice long rides from out launching point all the way to the river mouth at the west and back past it out to the east for as far as I dared. Still only reaching but many enough ground upwind to keep away from the shore ... the Square One is really killing my upwind eh! Had to do a few WoS when the wind dropped off but not too many - and I wasn't the only one! Gravy but not the good beef gravy, no ...
Also discovered a new technique for getting through the breakers ... those rotten little buggers that sweep in knee-high with enough force to push my foot out from under me or sink the board if I just try to ride into them ... took this long to figure it out cos I can only now do what I think is load'n'pop and you need to be powered-up or at least moving with a little speed but what you do is ride along or turn parallel to the wave then as it's about to hit, carve into it hard with a heavy back foot then pop the board up - usually you'll bounce/float over the wave. Just gotta be careful not to be too aggressive or have too much power in the kite or the pop turns into a jump and float back downwind right on top of the wave ... splat!
Wife had the video camera and took some shots - got my ickle jump on film too! Then she ran out of battery and the wind ran out of puff ... worked it hard for another 30 minutes then gave up cos I was getting tired and pissed off at the lack of go.
So I had a nice hour & a half or so of powered-up riding and another half hour on either side of slogging but it was a good day, worth the drive out there! Video coming soon!
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