Kitesurfing goodness :-)

Well....it's been a couple of reasonably good days here on the kitesurfing front. Not least of which is because Michelle is starting to really get going on the shorter board properly now! It's a good feeling, watching her power the kite up and just cruise away :-)

We had a fantastic day at Elliott Heads on Friday......I took the day off work and we went to the beach for the day. It was light to start with, but by mid afternoon, it was cranking in nicely.....so much so that I ended up on the 10 :-) Saturday was light, but kiteable.....I had to fly the 16 and couldn't do much, but it was a nice easy session. Sunday afternoon was much better.....Michelle had some great runs on the 12 until it picked up a bit too much. A great weekend in all :-)

Bloody kite maintenance :-(

I'm still looking around for the chinaman I've apparently killed recently......

A few weeks ago, I blew a strut bladder in my 12. Of course, it was while I was pumping up and it was perfect conditions. Pain in the arse, but no real problem.....went out on my 14 and got demolished all afternoon, then went home and fixed the 12 bladder.

I got to the beach a couple of days ago and it was light wind, so I got my 16 out. In the course of pumping up, I found 2 strut bladders that were so badly twisted that they were severely deforming the strut. No amount of flapping/jiggling/swearing worked, so I gave up and put it back in the car and got the 14 out. Half way through pumping the LE up, the centre strut bladder blew. FFS....... So, there's that session buggered.

Yesterday afternoon, while pumping up my 12, I discovered that the tip batten pocket stitching had popped at the TE of one tip, over about a 2 inch area. Being desperate, I flew it anyway, but by the time I got back in it had reached about 6 inches, so I had to spend an hour or so in front of the telly last night, hand sewing the fkng thing back on.......hate that!

I can't help wondering what's next?

Will this rain ever go away??

Damn.....someone has really turned on the taps at the moment. Every time I walk outside it's raining lately! I even had to kite in the rain on Friday afternoon......how's that for desperate?!

Michelle and I spent the weekend in Bundy so we could kite at Elliott Heads, but that didn't work out so well. No wind to speak of on Saturday morning, so we went snorkelling instead. We were surprised at how much coral/wildlife there actually was at the spot we went to.....Michelle managed to touch a turtle and we even saw a stonefish! First time either of us had seen one for real.....ugly little suckers, for sure.

Went for a short kite on Sat arvo when the wind finally came up, but Sunday was the better day. We went to Toogoom and Michelle got a few good runs on the shorter board before it *really* picked up......then I went out and was overpowered on the 10! Very gusty and not much fun for Michelle to be learning in, but better than not getting out at all!

Roll on the fine weather!!