kiteboarding

Yesterday I had easily my best day of kiteboarding yet. A day later, I still get a warm fuzzy feeling remembering the feeling of skimming across the waves off Crown beach in Alameda, carving turns and finally feeling some of the subtleties of flying the kite. I think it was my fifth or sixth time out on the water, and everything just clicked; as soon as I body dragged out away from the beach, I was up on my board, heading out into the San Francisco Bay. A few minutes later, seeing not too many kiteboarders around, I swooped the kite back down and headed back to the beach. I lost track of how many laps I rode until the wind turned into a gentle breeze, and I noticed people giving up and heading for the beach. I doggedly kept the kite up, and as the wind died, I had the opportunity to try to generate my own "apparent wind" by flying the kite in figure eights as fast as possible, and eventually relented and headed back to the beach. Earlier, in a fit of optimism, I decided not to connect my board leash and ended up getting really far downwind of my board. Luckily Wes, my instructor from my water lesson happened to be out there and he grabbed and returned my board. Despite all my effort to stay upwind, I ended up a mile or so down the beach, and did the now familiar long walk back up to the shack.

Chloe also had a good day: she inflated, rigged and tested out her new GK Sonic in the water.