The days wind
Start the day with a splash!
I've already got a relatively large amount of experience so I was keen to get in the water ASAP. The instructor bumped me up to day 2 status so I joined a guy who'd already done his 1st day.The wind was 10mph at best, bang onshore and the tide was coming in so it wasn't ideal but it was enough for what we wanted to do.
We were suited up and headed up out with a couple of 9m Ozone Instinct Light kites.
We setup the kites on the beach and went through the safety systems, quickly got the kite in the air and wandered down to the water for some body dragging.
New Kite
I struggled for quite a while as I had to unlearn the characteristics of the kites I'm used to as I was too aggressive with the kite and it kept flying out of the window. The winds were light and my kites are faster on the turn. So, I spent most of my time water relaunching the kite. Relaunching is hard enough, relaunching when the kite is swallowed by waves and your being bounced around yourself is hard work. This in itself was frustrating but valuable lessons in how to water relaunch in various situations - the upshot was at all costs keep the kite flying!Body Dragging
Once I'd got the kite sussed I quickly got into body dragging downwind, rapidly followed by a lesson in body dragging upwind. The upwind drag involved being a lot deeper in the water so I swallowed quite a bit of nasty sea water. Still, I got the principal pretty quickly and moved on.
The most tiring bit was repeatedly walking out into deep water with the kite - wind pulling me inshore, an incoming tide trying to push me into shore and a floatation vest preventing me from going anything deeper than chest height. All in all it took a lifetime to walk out, then about 10 seconds to body drag back in!
After a spot of lunch and some theory our instructor let us use his 13m Ozone Instict Sport to generate more power so we could get on the board.
On the board
This was the interesting bit and what I'd come for. Trying to fly the kite 1 handed, get your feet in the straps, get everything lined up avoiding spinning round+slipping feet+moving kite, dive the kite to get power (in light winds), weight over, plane away, keep the kite moving in low winds and battle with the waves was extremely challenging.It took quite a lot of effort and a lot of trial & error but I eventually got up on the board for about 2m! This was an accomplishment after a solid day of working and it was good to do. I understand the prinicpal of what I should be doing and I think I'll get it with some practice.
We debriefed and it would have been easier to do if there had been more wind that would have meant I could focus on board skills rather than trying to do that *and* keep the kite in the air by moving it around a lot.
In the end, it was a great day and definetly worth going on the training course to progress a lot faster than I would have done on my own. Plus, most importantly, it was safer working with trained instructors and having the backup of lifeguards around.
