Best Onshore Wind Sesh in Recent Memory

During April the East coast of Florida has relatively strong and consistent winds from the ocean. Every day this week has provided pumping conditions for sunset windsurfing or kiteboarding sessions. Along with the fun I've experienced two minor kitemares, one broken spreader bar on my windsurfing harness, several portuguese man o' war near-misses, and a ganglion cyst on my right foot. The best evening of windsurfing was Wednesday. I edited up some video from that session so you can watch it (below). Beware that the song is a weird and cheesy mix of techno and heavy metal.

Fort Pierce Onshore Wind Wavesailing Session from James Douglass on Vimeo.

The week's kiting was a little sketchy because of the kitemares, but I did get some ok video from Tuesday before my kite's leading edge bladder leaked and sent it into an epileptic fit for a minute before I got it under control enough to body drag back to shore. This was after Monday's kite-inversion nightmare, where an underinflated center strut (my mistake) caused the kite to bowtie after I tried a backwards roll. That time I got inside the kite for shark protection and floated to the beach in it like it was a rubber raft. During the journey I wound up all my lines and disentangled the kite so once I got to shallow water I could just hop off and carry the kite with one hand back to where I started. When I was almost to shore the coastguard came by but I told 'em I was ok. Gotta admit that kiting has more hassles and dangers than windsurfing. I ALWAYS wear my helmet and life jacket.

Here's the video of the kiting. The song is by the Clash.

Onshore Wind Kite Session 4-13-2010 from James Douglass on Vimeo.