Remember Leslie Nielsen? Starred in the movie “Airplane”, then did a video (or maybe it was a book?) called “Bad Golf My Way”.
Hirifa is where Tuamotu Kite School sets up operations during this time of year. Adrian and Aline are a great couple, teaching kiting and free diving and hosting guests on their catamaran named “Pizza”. What a great name for a boat! Who doesn’t like pizza?
Anyway, the kite surfing wind was on schedule today, and we began by giving Isabel a shot at building her skills. She’s hit a bit of a hump that she needs to get over, so either she’s going to soak up some training videos or take a couple lessons from Adrian or Aline. We need to get her past this point of frustration and back to having fun, blasting around the bay. She did pretty good today.
Then it was my turn. The wind was building, but also gusty and a bit unpredictable. Skilled kite surfers were setting up or already doing their thing. Time for me to get after it, so we got the lines laid out, the kite inflated and properly rigged right there on the sandy beach, then launched and stable overhead. So far so good. Isabel walked the board down to me and helped me get set up in the water, then I was off!
I started out pretty well, staying upwind while doing my best to avoid conflicts with other kiters. Need to review those “rules of the road” to make sure I don’t create a safety hazard, bad feelings or a bloody collision. Eddie, a young teenage boy from SV September a.m. was bopping around on his wind surfer and darned if he didn’t feel like a magnet. Kind of like during my snow skiing days when if I looked at a tree I headed straight towards it, but I managed to avoid whacking Eddie or anyone else all afternoon.
Apparently I need to review those “how to turn and go the other way without sinking” videos. Had it working really well a week ago, now can’t do it to save my life. Still, launches were working and I was having a great time, that is until I got too close to the tree line near the end of the beach, with a bunch of anchored boats nearby downwind. That’s when a big gust launched the kite out of my control and next thing I knew I was releasing the primary and emergency attachments only to have the kite blow past Pizza and the lines tangle in the mast rigging. Gee whiz.
I swam towards the boat hollering at anyone onboard to “help”. Bodies who were probably napping or having tea quickly emerged and began addressing the entangled lines, while Adrian lept into his dinghy and rescued the kite. Oddly enough he didn’t deflate the kite, rather just controlled the situation until the lines were untangled from the boat, then towed it all to the beach so I could set up and continue kiting. Seemed to be no big deal to him, hugely embarrassing to me but as I recover quickly from doing stupid things, I was soon re-rigged and back at it. No telling what Isabel was thinking, but she continued to keep an eye on me and ended up rescuing me when the leash attachment to the board broke after one horrendous crash. I elected to continue for a bit longer and she stayed pretty close with the dinghy, figuring it was only a matter of time before disaster struck again.
She was right. My objective was to work my way upwind and back to the beach launch point so I could recover the kite to the beach. I was making decent progress and got to a point close to the beach (and the dreaded tree line) with boats downwind when I sank during a turn. A gust took the kite and while I was trying to get control of the situation it crashed into the water near an anchored boat, so I immediately cut away. As luck would have it the kite bar got entangled with a boat’s anchor marker float, once again proving my incompetence.
Charlie from SV Long Temps helped Isabel gather everything up, then we packed up for the day. She declared I was no longer allowed anywhere upwind of anchored vessels, and I heartily agreed.
It was a fantastic afternoon!
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