ouch!
I went kiteboarding today and unfortunately failed to realize that the tide was extremely high today. Actually, I noticed it at the launch, but the consequence of the hide tide -- namely that the so called "last chance beach" was underwater -- failed to make it into my brain. So anyway, I had kind of a hard time getting up wind, and then missed the landing and ended up way downwind looking for the beach. I eventually gave up, dropped the kite and got washed ashore along the barnacle covered rocks near Excite. I hope the kite bladder isn't exploded! I'm crossing my fingers that the Cabrinha quality assurance people had extra coffee the day they made my kite.
I had a long walk back up to the lot and along the way I saw that everyone had come in, except these two guys who were throwing HUGE tricks in the bay! It was remarkable not only because the tricks were pretty complicated, but also because no one could even ride in the dead wind, let alone jump. I watched them jump the patch of reeds, do handle passes, help eachother out (one of them tipped his kite way down so the other one could untangle a bridle -- all while both of them were riding). When the wind died even more, one of them would pull the others downed kite up into the air to re-launch it. The bottom line is that the kites were like extensions of their bodies; they had total control. It turned out that they were Cabrinha sponsored riders and are only 14 and 17 years old
