Heading out all geared up

Almost up out of the water

Working hard to try and get up, board is facing the wrong way!!!

Taking on water

 Here are some decent actions shots, Barry took them from the chase boat.  During the lessons, we would fly the kites downwind and then the instructor would come back and fly your kite back upwind or you would just drag it back upwind in the water, very tiring. Today we went on a down wind jaunt.  They took us in a boat about 5 km upwind and then we flew (well I was mostly dragged) back down wind to the home beach.  At the end of the third lesson I felt like I was getting the hang of it.  I had some decent runs on the board and I felt like I was making progress.  Today there was less wind and I had a bigger kite which was slower to react. I was dragged around a lot, I swallowed a lot of water and  I only had one half decent little run on the board.  I was so frustrated and tired at the end of the lesson, golly, gosh, shucks, darn!

We asked if Barry could come along in the boat and the instructor was lucky to have him.  He was in the water holding the kite when the lines got mixed up, he drove the boat, he grabbed my board when  I lost it and was dragged downwind too far away to pick it up.  He was a marvel.  At the end of the downwind run, the instructor told me to drop the kite and he took the boat out in front of me in anticipation of picking up the kite, wrong move.  I was tired and was trying to figure out what he wanted and took my eyes of the kite, it got inverted and crashed right into the boat.  It just BARELY missed Barry and the instructor, I could have decapitated them, it was kind of unsafe of him to get the boat in a position where the kite would hit it when it came down.  I am glad it did not hit anyone.  

I can do some more downwind runs, I don't really need more lessons, just practice.  It would be nice to have a chase boat along to get you out of trouble.  I guess I could just go out and walk back upwind as well, that would be a lot less expensive. I got some money back on my taxes, so perhaps I will pay for a couple more downwind runs, we'll see.  We are waiting to get some mail from Canada and once it comes we will look for a window to go to Mauritius.