I get up early and its already windy, lovely and sunny, clear skies! Perfect. So I do a little run (not too far!) to warm up the old muscles and use the beach gym as well so that I am nicely warmed up before I head off for kite lessons.
I nice hearty breakfast courtesy of Ali and I am ready to go. I meet Silvie my instructor for the morning, its basically kite till I drop today as this is my main chance to get some time on the water in really. The weather very windy, 15-20knots, and unfortunately the breeze is pretty hard on shore but the best for practicing my upwind.
Silvie talks me through some new techniques for getting up, and edging to I can go upwind quicker. Its all good and I am ready to rock and roll, sadly the first thing is the long walk out to sea! The nice thing about safety bay is the sand bar, around low tide which is when I start, you can walk out in waste deep water for quite a long way for days like this really. So that’s where I head, while Silvie grabs the kite and board and has a play waiting for me….. I guess that is what you giving a girl incentive!!
Anyway, so eventually I make it out, get the kite and the board, a little instruction and we are off… its a busy day so plenty of other kite surfers as obstacles along the way, but thankfully I avoid them. I am on an 8metre kite today with a 6m just in case it goes up to 30 knots which is predicted.
So, for 3hours its kite right, left trying to get upwind and doing ok, but not enough that I end where I start yet!! So after some good runs, its walking back out again as the water gets deeper and deeper as the tide comes in!! So this is repeated basically until I simply don’t have the energy! I do end on a couple of really excellent runs and again, I have learnt a much better way to get out of the water and edge. Now its practice… so I am going to start to look for a kite camp as part of my trip so I can get to the point where lessons just aren’t needed for a while.
West Oz Kite are really great, very good equipment they cost more than other schools at $100 an hour. But Gaz and Sonya are really excellent, very helpful. I guess that is why I keep coming back, and safety bay is a great place to learn.
So after 3 hours…. I am absolutely shattered!! I think all I really want to do now is sleep, obviously the only pitfall is not being able to do that on the beach because its so darn windy!! lol…
So I find a spot to relax and chill out, I grab a much earned Pizza from Crust in Rockingham (which was amazing!!!) and then an early night! Tomorrow I am up at the crack of dawn again for yet more adrenalin sports! This stuff is really addictive!!
A perfect end to a perfect day!
Spin My Own Dreams 