Hmmmm

Well, Mother Nature hasn't done anywhere near as much cooperating as I'd hoped. In fact, I think I'm going to officially call this the worst season I've had kiting since I started. Of course, it's not ALL her fault, but on the times when I've been able to actually get to the beach, she's been sending all the wind to Tarifa or somewhere......

I've recently taken up full size gliding and I must say, it's provided me with a whole new thing to be addicted to. It's *very* good fun and comparatively cheap when compared to flying powered aircraft. Add to that the lack of engine noise and vibration and the spectacular visibility afforded by a glider cockpit and....well....I can't imagine why you'd want to fly anything else really!  This is where I'm learning to fly.  If you've never flown in a glider, I highly recommend taking the opportunity if it ever presents itself.

I'm not dead!

I'm still here. I haven't been abducted by aliens (although I suspect I'm being visited by them from time to time.....) or something equally fantastic but entirely unlikely. I still have the shop (check out the shop blog HERE) and 99.9% of my time and energy goes into running that. I *have* managed to get a bit of kiting in, but even Mother Nature has ceased cooperating in that respect. It's been a woeful season for useable wind so far. Bring on the SE winds after xmas!!

Catching up

Well.....it's certainly been a *loong* time between posts on here, but I have an excuse! I'm lazy.

There, now that we have that out of the way, I can actually explain what's been going on. You see, I've been having so much fun working for myself in the hobby shop, I've hardly thought about any of the things I used to do when I worked for CentreFlunk. I used to blog at least semi-regularly then, but I've got so many other things to do now. So many toys, but so little time :-)

I've been doing a little bit of RC flying again recently. I've put another nitro helicopter together (since I sold my old Ergo50), but I still have my electric TRex450SE V2. I've also become rather keen on electric flying for my planes. I converted my World Models Super Sports Senior over to electric and haven't looked back since (apart from the minor crash that is....). I just electrified a 120 sized Ultimate Biplane too, which is 'kn awesome!

I finally got around to test flying my Faser glider a couple of days ago and all I can say is 'wow'. Being a fully composite moulded plane, it's incredibly strong but light too. I was hoping to get some onboard footage today but it hasn't stopped raining since early this morning, so I guess that's out. I'm competing in the QLD thermal championships with it next weekend, so some practice would have been nice :-)

I haven't had much of a chance to kitesurf since I got the hobby shop. It's a bit hard finishing at 17:00 when you're used to bailing out at 15:00!! Never mind.....eventually I'll work out a way to get more kiting time in. We *did* go for a drive to Middle Creek yesterday, but it wasn't windy enough for me to get going (so all I got was cranky....). At least Michelle got to kite......

More pain......

Ok, so there's been 1 day of decent wind here in a whole week or more. The day before had no wind at all, so we took the mountain board out to practice. End result, Michelle crashed and got a mild concussion. Mountain board 3 : Us 0.

On the single windy day, I spent about 5 hours on the water, trying out riding blind and trying to do handle-passes. I also botched a kiteloop, resulting in a reasonably heavy crash. So, I was pretty sore at the end of the day.

Next day, no wind again, so we took the mountain board out again. We went looking for a steeper hill to try to get some more speed happening. Michelle sat this one out though. So, after finding a 'suitably steep' hill (read: too steep for my skill level), I proceeded to spend the next 15 minutes or so falling on the ground in various ways, including one fall that was heavy enough to hurt my back again. Mountain board 4 : MrBonk 0. *sigh*

Busy busy busy!

How time flies! I've been so busy I haven't had time to think about posting here lately.

Decent winds have finally started to crank back in here, so I've been kiting as much as possible. My new Peter Lynn Venom2's are just awesome! I had an absolutely epic weekend, kiting both days. I think I put in about 5 hours on the water yesterday (feels like 10....I'm broken today). Big wind, big jumps and some awesome wave action :-)

I'm just about to do my IKO course (from the 19th of this month), so after that it's full steam ahead with the lessons and the new biz.

Slackness

Well.....what a slack little blogger I've been of late! I didn't realise it had been so long since I'd posted......I guess time really *does* fly when you're having fun :-)

So, what's been happening? We went on holidays a little while ago. We camped at a few places on our way up the coast to Airlie Beach, before heading over to the Pepper's Palm Bay resort on Long Island for a week.
The camping was absolutely fabbo! We stayed at Cape Hillsborough, then a beautiful little spot on the way into Finch Hatton Gorge called the Platypus Bush Camp. We were going to stay at a camp ground up in the Eungella range, but to cut a long story short, we rescued an injured possum and had to drive him back in to Mackay for medical attention. It was too late at night to head back up the range, so we ended up staying in a caravan park at Bucasia Beach, just outside Mackay (even longer story).
Next stop was Long Island. The Peppers Resort over there is absolutely fantastic. No TVs, no phones and best of all, no kids! The entire week was so relaxing, but we ate way too much food....it was just too good to pass up! We took one kite/board over, just in case, but it was no good for kiting there. Too much reef etc on the shoreline. It wasn't windy enough anyway.

I've started a kitesurf business! It's called Kitesurf Obsession (the website is still in development). I'm booked in to do my IKO instructor's certification towards the end of November, so after that I'll be all set to start doing lessons. I've got a couple of brands on board already (Peter Lynn and Best), as well as pushing my mate's kiteboards (www.cardboarding.com).

I'll pull my finger out and post some photos of the holiday when I get some more time.

Ciao!

Winter doldrums

Bugger.....looks like the Winter doldrums are upon us :-( I just missed a whole week of 20/25kt SE winds here (for various reasons), but it looks like that might have been the last of the kite-able wind until Spring time. Bollocks to that......

Big kite weather

Looks like the kite season is all but over here. The wind dropped off just after easter and there hasn't been a decent kiteable day since then :-( Of course, it's 'round about now that I normally resort to dragging out the big guns (my 16M monster) when I get desperate enough to go for a kite. Oddly enough, as soon as I get on the water with it, I immediately remember why I invariably decide to never fly it again......until the next time I get desperate enough ;-)

Living in a place like this, it's easy to forget just how slow these big kites are in light wind. The biggest thing I've flown since I moved here at xmas time is my 12, although I could count the number of times I've had it out on one hand. The rest of the time, I've been on the 10 or the 8. Anyway, yesterday was one of those days when I got desperate enough to get the 16 out. Man oh man, talk about going from a Ferrari to a semi trailer......it's like everything happens in slow motion. But, at least I got out. Better than sitting on the couch or in front of the computer :-)

Kites ain't kites....

Just before Easter, I managed to get my hands on a Peter Lynn Venom2 kite to try (thanks to Lachy at Kiteworks, who kindly offered to send it to me) while I was off on holidays. I'd been keen to try the 'foil' style kites for ages, but no-one around here flies them and there's no kite shop here.
So, when Lachy offered me a 13M to demo for a while, I wasn't about to refuse :-) Man...what an awesome bit of gear! I did the highest jumps I've ever done, with huge hangtime and the most floaty landings ever. The first couple of really high ones (after I got the timing sorted out) were downright scary! It also made for big, floaty front-roll transitions with very little effort. It soaks up the gusts like a sponge and has fantastic wind range too.

There's only one drawback.....I had to give it back :-( I went out for a session on my own kites this afternoon and, well, they suck by comparison. I didn't realise just how bad they are (twitchy, poor gust handling and woeful depower) compared to the Venom2. I know what I'll be buying when I can afford to replace my kites now!

Yeah baby!

Holidays and already 3 solid days of kiting.......now that's what I'm talkin' about :-)

Holy windy batman!!

Seems I spoke too soon about the wind. Yesterday afternoon, I thought I was finally going to get out for a decent kite......forecast looked good, BOM observations looked good, so I raced home and headed down the beach. When I got there, it was averaging about 20kts, gusting to 26 or so. Ok, fine. Forecast was for 20/25kts, dropping to 15/20.

Unfortunately, as I was laying out my lines and pumping up my kite, the wind kept getting stronger and stronger. Eventually, it was averaging 25 and gusting to 30+kts! Even on my smallest kite, I'm still too light to hold down that much wind, so all I could do was stand there getting sandblasted, waiting for it to drop off (which it didn't do). I gave it 45 minutes and packed up.

One thing though.....at those wind speeds, the huge drifts of sand being blown across the beach and the sand flats out the back look just like moving water in a long exposure photo. It's very cool to watch actually.

I decided to push my luck.......

I went for a kite today.....for the first time in over a month.....and it felt good :-) I probably shouldn't have.....my wrist is a bit more sore than I'd like right now, but it's certainly better than I thought it might be. One of the other guys I kite with wasn't so lucky though. While the rest of us were packing up, he managed to crash heavily on his ankle and may have broken it. It might be just badly sprained, if he's lucky.

I tried backroll kiteloops for the first time today. I've come to the conclusion that I need to either only do these on my 10m or 8m kites, or buy myself a much faster 12m kite. My Airush Lift ('04 model) just doesn't turn fast enough to do these without getting *well* spanked, even in moderate winds. It loops way too slowly for me to even consider using it for that again! Maybe when I've got some more practice at these and I can handle more power.......certainly not good for learning them anyway :-) The first couple I tried on the 12 resulted in a couple of spectacular superman impersonations, which has left me pretty sore from the impact on the water. I managed to land a couple, but I crashed more than I landed on the 12. The 10 was a whole lot different.....much faster through the window, so I got yanked a lot less and managed to actually land most of the ones I tried on it. I'm looking forward to heading out again tomorrow with a bit more wind to see how it goes, depending on how the wrist is when I wake up. There's a strong wind warning in effect for tomorrow though, so I might have to chicken out yet :-)

Wrist pain.

Just recently, I've been starting to get really sore wrists.....the right much more so than the left. I put it down to too much computer work, but it's been steadily getting worse and worse. I tried to go for a kite a little while ago and had to come back in after only 2 short runs because the pain was unbelievable :-( I went to the doc....he tells me I've got Tendonitis. Great. He tells me I shouldn't kite for 6 to 12 weeks. Awesome. I'm supposed to be spending a week at Elliott Heads with the rest of the local kite crew in the week before Easter. Given that's only 3 weeks away now, that's not looking good :-( I figure I won't kite at all in the meantime, so I just *might* be ok to kite at Easter. Fingers crossed!

I got me a new toy :)

I just got myself a new 19" LCD monitor (a BENQ FP91V, for the other geeks out there...). How nice is it being able to look at my screen in 1280 x 1024 and have the entire picture crystal clear over the *entire* screen? I'll tell ya.....it's fkng great! My ageing 19" Mitsubishi CRT can't cope with that res and stay in focus for some reason. Even though it says it can in the manual. Mind you, it's been in for repairs 3 times during the time I've owned it.....I'll never buy another Mitsubishi monitor as long as I live.

So, anyway....given that I've been a Slack Bastard® and haven't bothered to post here in a while, I suppose I should mention a few other things of note. First and foremost, Michelle is up and going fine on the kite now. Going upwind and all :-) Now I reckon that's pretty damned cool myself.....there are presently *no* other girls kiting around here! We've had some pretty crap weather of late though.....as I type this, it's been raining pretty well constantly for the entire day now. When it *has* actually been blowing it's been ok, but those days have been few and far between just recently. Michelle got a couple of awesome shots of me at Elliott Heads in early February:


And before the 'leash police' start getting all bent out of shape, I *am* wearing a leash.......I never kite without one. It's just very difficult to make out in those 2 shots. It's a 'through the bar' 5th line safety, so the connection is obscured behind the chickenloop in both those shots.

Work is still progressing nicely, although a bit slowly owing to the fact that I've had to fill in for someone while they were on leave for a week.....so my programming project basically got put on hold during that time. I tried to keep going on it, but it was a waste of time really.....I'd just get started on something and I'd get interrupted and lose my train of thought.....hate that!

New Year's Eve

We went to Elliot Heads with a couple of kiting friends on New Year's Eve and had a *huge* session on the water....easily the biggest I've had for a while. Not immensely windy or anything, but just a good solid session. Had a meal and a few drinks and saw in the New Year quietly (we were all so tired from the day at the beach it wasn't funny!) in the hope that it was going to be windy the next morning. The forecast was good, but as usual, it was wrong. Too light to make it really worth going, but we went anyway. That's addiction for you :-)

If that's xmas....I've done it.

Well, that's another xmas down. Between too much food, too much drink, too much heat and too much kitesurfing, I'm going to have to go back to work to recover :-)

Xmas day was the windiest I've kited for a long while......27knots and some decent waves at Mon Repos near Bundaberg. Even on my smallest kite (8m) I was overpowered 90% of the time, but it was still good fun! We drove home that night through a massive thunder storm, complete with the most awesome lightning show I've ever seen. Mother nature never ceases to impress the shit out of me :-)

Severe time shortages

Between work, xmas parties and the weather being generally uncooperative, today was the first kite I've had in almost a month! No wonder I was starting to get edgy.

I had to fly to Canberra last week for work. For the 2 weeks before that, the weather had been *really* ordinary....lots of storms etc. So, no kiting for me. Then, on the day I flew out, it was perfect.....clear skies, blowing a good solid 15knots+. Man I hate that! I even tortured myself all week, looking at the wind readings for home.

However, things are finally looking up on the work front. I inherited a pretty big project while I was in Canberra.....one that goes hand in hand with one I'm already working on actually. All going well, I might finally be able to swing a permanent outposted job!

Today's kite wasn't great.....*very* windy and quite gusty too, but it was fantastic to be back on the water again :-)

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!!