kite-o-rama

Our friend Stan is a kiteboarder. Kiteboarding is an amazing sport where you use a large kite to pull you across the water on a board. He brought his practice kite to Potlatch and taught me how to use it on land. I love kites, so this was awesome to me. He then let me borrow it for a week while we were traveling. We were going to see him in Vancouver later, so it worked out perfectly.

The first time we got the space to put up the kite was at Long Beach, Washington, "The World's Longest Beach." We'd eaten a huge seafood lunch (calamari, crab, shrimp, mussels, clams) and hit up the touristy attractions, like the half man half aligator at Marsh's Free Museum. So we headed out the beach to fly the kite.

It was windy. It was very windy. But there were other people flying kites (and we were right next to the World Kite Museum), so I figured all would be well. The kite went up quickly and stayed up easily, that is, until you tried to turn it. Then it caught the wind and pulled you forward a few feet without you having any say in it. I flew it for a few minutes and then let Sam have a try.

He was good for a minute or two until he tried turning it. Sam is lighter than I am and the kite took him and face planted him in the sand a few feet forward. It then re-launched itself and did it again before I could lay on it and stop it from moving. Packing up the kite, we saw that the wind had not only caused Sam some discomfort, but also ripped a hole in Stan's kite.

And now I really want to take up snow kiteboarding this winter.