Kite Bytes - Kiteboarding

I received an email from my sister Karli recently that I thought was worth posting.

"Great pictures - both Squamish and the beach - love the Kits/Spanish banks - looked like a very fun day/night. You have lots of pictures of girls in bikinis :)

So, we went up to Nitinat Thursday night, came back Sunday. It was blowing 20-25 knots all weekend. Beautiful and sunny, too. Francis had a really great time and got up on the board going both directions, if only briefly to the right! He is so excited and loves the North board. I went out Saturday and had a tough time controlling the 10 initially - plus it was with a new bar, and Francis' board which I've never ridden. Ended up just body dragging, really. Then came the part where you say - now what the hell do I do to get the kite down when I'm downwind and haven't crashed yet but want to get into shore - tried to take out windsurfers twice (due to the lack of wind in the bay - kite falls out of the sky, falls straight downwind, then picks up the wind and pop - out of the water and then down goes the kite!) and then thought I'd just land it out in the water and self rescue the very short distance to shore. Not so short after all. Learned a very important lesson - never self rescue unless you have to. Francis, however, learned this lesson even more as both he and the first boat that went to rescue him down by the hatchery got rescued by Fred the crabman!


Anyhow, Francis went to see Dwayne from Strong Kiteboarding to,look at a new 2005 12 meter Bronco for me, and Dwayne said that I would never use it because it's too big for me :(

Sunday, Chris from Strong Kiteboarding, (all 150lbs at best) was out on a 6m or a 7m!!!! And the 8m would have been great for me, so, that is next on the to buy list - and before we buy a trailer for sure!"