Been keeping an eye on the forecast, the way you do... nothing here but Mie looked good in the morning but dropping off around 3pm so I figured I should haul my ass out bed early and check again in the morning. Which I did, around 8am... hmm, worse than yesterday. I should pull finger and leave ASAP. Early bird gets the worm, and all that...
So I hit the highway and roll up to the carpark around 10:10am and the wind is crankin'! Better than forecast—I love days like this! Couple of pole-dancers and a couple of kites setting up 11m kites. Let's go for the S3 15 again, shall we? Bit chilly too... full length wetsuit!
Whoah—rapid prefill... this should be good! Head out with the 'radical tucked under my arm... BOOM off like a rocket! A great session follows...!
The waves are good; shoulder-height north of the pier/drain thing but nice and clean, knee-height south and perfect kickers! The tide seems to be going out, and oh look! there's a sandbar down south that makes for a perfect flat water playground... so long as you can get over the bar without digging fins and falling over. It's way closer than that other area way down near the river mouth too. Yes I enjoyed that a lot! Heading back into the waves and big boosting off the kickers for big yippees!
Got a bit hairy judging that crossing... at lowest tide, had to time it with waves going in (even though they were only a few inches) and riding just fast enough to plane with the board flat. Was getting enough 'reflected' waves that they were splashing back up a few feet high :o
Hang-time is great today, lots of hover. Not massive height but I can see that I'm clearing the masts of the pole-dancers with ease. But just hanging there, lookin' around, takin' in the view for a few... hours it felt like! :D
Ninja-waves got me good once... just for ol' times sake! Caught me in a lull with no board speed to pop over it, trying to get out, and I got tumbled good... kite even hit the water :o
Another time, I got lazy with a take-off and ended up doing a really slow back-roll and getting slammed good halfway through.
Rain and clouds... messed with my head and got my paranoia working over-time—was sure that I kept getting static shocks and kept looking around to see if there was lightning about. None in the forecast (usually get a warning) and none to be seen or heard, so I figured it was shock through the depower line or just rain hitting my hands.
Gravy! Rained almost non-stop though, so I have a soggy kite to deal with... but I'm happy! Got the worm!
Mood for the session was soggy psyched showing-off.
Moment of the Day was any one of the perfect carves and boosts up the face of waves or perhaps... jumping just in front of the lip of a wave and drifting downwind as it broke under me, hovering over the foam, finally landing on it and riding out of the froth... neato!
It sucks when you fall over and the water drags on the rear of your harness, levering the spreader bar deep into your liver.
Song stuck in my head was Gangnam Style by M/V... or maybe PSY. Damn you, Drew! "Dum de dum de dum whoopah! gangnam style!" over and frickin over...
Weather was reported as 13.2 - 10.6 - 8.8 - 17.8 - 13.2 - 12.4 knots from 10am to 3pm; gusts to 22.2 knots at 1pm. Fairly steady 22°C at 88% and 0.5mm of rain... was that all? Got soggier than that, surely!
Wind felt like it was a little gusty but otherwise, perfectly powered for steady, regular and predictable "having fun" jumps.
What I learned today...
• There's a sandbar south of the pier/drain that makes a wicked flat-water zone at low tide.
• My basic load'n'pop technique is fine; on flat water, it works nicely. So when I cock it up in the chop, I can blame the conditions after all ;)
• Better to have the heels closer to the edge than toes—locks the edge in chop nicer. Straps over the toes more...
• REALLY need to sack up and try to loop the kite when I get elevatored by gusts.
• Don't try to edge too hard when 'carving' a wave... dig the toes in, but don't over do it!
• Don't leave the pop too late... which I seem to be doing when I get tired and lazy.
• Doing the upside-down look-behind-me—don't drop your knees when you recover; keeping them into your chest when you come upright makes it easier to land and judge the touch-down.
• Turn hard, sheet out and load'n'pop aggressively gives the best height for jumps, I think.
No comments:
Post a Comment