Wednesday 26th September - Kitesurfing - Benone

I took today off work, as I had a couple of days to take off in lieu of travel. The forecast looked good, steady 15-20 knots onshore all day. I'm not totally fussed on onshore now, as it can be a bit boring, with no ramps to play on.

I got the kids off to school and was at the beach shortly after 8:30, so I was set up and on the water before 9. However there was some sort of problem with the kite; it was flying fine in one direction, but in the other direction the bar had to be held at a big angle. It seemed like there was a line caught, or short or something. As there was noone there to land me, I decided to make the best of it for a while. After 15-20 minutes I came in, as it was basically no fun at all, and just as I got to the car George arrived to land me.

I took the lines off and inspected everything, but couldn't see anything wrong. I launched and it seemed to be flying better. So I headed out again, and it was fine. We must have been out for 2-3 hours in the morning, it was a long session.

After a break for lunch we went back out again. I was a bit cold, but did some excercises to warm up, and was fine once I got on the water. Not sure how long I was out for this time, 1-2 hours.

Today I mostly worked on toeside, I was sailing nicely in my good direction, struggling a bit in the bad direction. Sailing cross-shore also enabled me to work on riding pretty parallel to the waves, which is always quite a challenge. The other thing was that any hint of cross direction in the wind was from the East, which isn't my usual direction. So there was a lot more practice going in my bad direction across the breaking waves too. Some good training, important, but not as satisfying as a good wave session.

Still, it's a long time since I've spent a whole day at the beach, and it was great!