Sneaky early evening outing
Wind was howling yesterday - first decent knots in ages - 15 gusting to 25. Me & Proto made it down to Dolls Point - wow what an awesome location on weekdays - just us and a handful of other kiters, stunning white sands, big beach (thx council for chucking all the extra sand on!). Beautiful, sunny and a bit of wind.
Went for the 16 depowered. Soon reaslised error of our ways and powered her up.
Proto got an awesome session in - not losing any ground for the first half. Then he came a cropper and lost a bit of ground he couldn't make up, so I had to meet him downwind (northerly) before he ended up o ff the edge of the beach.
Then I was up, wind of course dropping by now. Hey - I am up first next session. or maybe we go crazy and both go out together??!!
Had to really throw her around to get some decent momentum. Not long after getting out there the wind fell off a cliff, kite hit the decks, and I was left struggling in the middle of the Bay.
I stuck it out for 20min or so trying & trying to relaunch. Now the 16 crossbow is nrmally really easy to relaunch - even we've found when she's inside out. But in zero wind and upside down and inside out there was no chance.
I was remarkedly calm. Normally in these circusmstances I can't untangle knots for thiknking about sharks. And frightening myself everytime the board leash touches my legs under the water! Any way I went thru the process very calmly, blissfully unaware that I was drifting awy from Brighton toward the national park on the other side. The guys on the beach were far more worried than I. There was apparently talk of police and the current I was drifting into and the local woman who drowned in it last year. Tide wasn't moving though so wasn't really that bad.
Fortunately not long after I started getting cramp i spotted a small fishing boat heading roughly my way. I tryed a fdew more attempts at relaunch then gave in and asked for a ride.
They'd caught no fish so a bedraggled kitesurfer was probably not a bad result.
More soon.
