For some odd reason, the boss insisted I take a holiday in July. For an odder reason, I decided to take it on a day with no work scheduled. Dumb.
Wind was supposed to be good enough at Machiya in Mie Prefecture so I drove over there and arrived about 2:30pm. 4 to 5 m/s and it's supposed to pick up from 3 to 6pm to 6 or 7 m/s - that's 10 knots, picking up to 14. Drifting in on the ocean breeze is the stink of fish and seaweed. I don't really notice it though cos I left my t-shirt and shorts in the car overnight and they started to brew - so everything around me stinks!
Pumped up the 16m Crossbow, hauled out the Flydoor. Little locals were riding ok on directionals and 12m kites so I should be good. Even rigged up the GoPro ... maybe that's what jinxed it.
Not enough wind. Slogging back'n'forth like a dumb ass. Sigh. Gonna have to risk the Silberpfeil on this grotty beach ... gah.
Unpack the white monster and out I go again ... holding ground but it's a bit lully - I'm not having a lot of fun. Milk it for as long as I can then come back in and wait for a bit. Impress the locals (both of them!) with big long floaty jumps on the beach, then go back out.
Nothings improved though. I got some riding jollies though so I'm not frustrated or disappointed - but I was hoping to capture some video of big air!
As I'm heading into the beach for the last time, I stop about 1m from the sand and get off the board. I'm walking into shore, holding my board and LOOKING into the water and I suddenly stumble over something sharp and hard - it's a barnacle encrusted concrete drainpipe lurking below the surface of the ocean, totally invisible. No warning sign, buoy or even a rotted post that once held a sign ... for a country like Japan that has warning signs on everything - roads are so cluttered with reflecting signs, barriers, posts, lumps, bumps, stickers ... you gotta wonder who let the side down here :-/
I've barked my shins and taken a big chunk out of my toe, sliced off about 4cm square from the side and bottom. Yum yum. Hobble up the beach and back-stall land the kite ... I'm counting that as an 'injury' cos it's going to be uncomfortable and bleed into my socks for a few days :D
Now, as I'm eyeing up the best way to land the Silberpfeil - use the washed up tree stump to secure the chicken loop and risk the kite on a very dirty part of the beach or put a stick in the ground and leave the kite on the nice soft grass - Uncle Peabrain decided he's going to fly his powered paraglider ... he's setting up on the area where we pump out kites up - you could lay out about 4 kites without too much fuss, 6 if you pack 'em in like sardines. Which would be fine, but there's a tree stump in the middle, a little fence of looped 10mm steel at the beach side, a chain link fence and public toilets on the other, palm trees to the left and power lines to the right.
Somehow, he manages to get it all rigged up but he can't get the wing into the air so it bounces around the area for a while, wrapping around tree stump, narrowly missing the powerlines but avoiding the trees. He's having trouble controlling the wing without knocking the throttle for the motor o_0 but eventually, it's up and he's trying to run down the stairs to the beach and launch - directly over our 3 parked kites ...! His motor stalls as he gets about a meter up at the bottom of the stairs and about 3m from running over our kites, so he drops the wing - over the concrete stairs and the little fence - then drags it all back up to the pump-up area. And does it all again.
This time he gets into the air. It sounds like he got it done in a hurry but all us kiters were just standing there gaping at him for about 15 minutes.
The fun isn't over ... I waddle around packing up for about a half hour and Uncle Chucklehead has come back once to buzz the beach at about 3m off the ground 0_o before he sets himself up on finals - over some trees, dodges one and then touches down between 2 others, leaving a couple of meters between his wingtips.
Note, he did this in the middle of an area with 4 kiters, people walking along the beach path, a couple of guys on scooters going back'n'forth and a guy with a Rescue canoe. Unbelievable. The short time I've been that close to PPG's in Japan, I've seen that dicktard and another one in Hamamatsu try to fix a fractured propeller with - I kid you not - string and ducktape. Not to mention the guys who buzz the kite beach at the lake ...
Ok rant over ...
Wind speed was recorded as 9 to 11 knots with gusts up to ... 14 an hour before I got on the water. Lame.
Moment of the Day was finding my favourite ice block - frozen orange or pineapple juice - in the shops in Mie. They've stopped selling them here which drives me insane.
What I learned today ...
• I need about 5 more knots of wind, say 2 to 3 m/s, to get the same jollies on the ocean as I do on the lake - 9 knots at Locus would be pretty good fun but it was the worst kind of lawn-mowing on the ocean. I'm betting cos it's so hard to get & keep board speed. The winds were clean too, less gusty than the lake :(
• It's quicker and cheaper to take the local roads to Machiya.
• Flysurfer is good. All hail Flysurfer. Another session saved - I wouldn't have been riding at all.
• I want a Speed3 12 and 21. Then my kite collection will be complete. No really.
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