Sunday came too soon, but I managed. I had set my phone alarm to go off at 7:20am, but it didn't, so I woke up at 7:40. We were told the previous night to be ready and on the bus by 8am. So I rushed through getting ready, collected my stuff again, and was waiting on the bus for the last guy :). The last guy turned out to be Amit. He did not get the word that the bus-time this morning had been changed from 8:30 to 8am. Everyone gave him a fun-loving hard time, and he tried to defend himself. It was no use. We drove off to a nearby restaurant for breakfast. Most of the group got the buffet, but it didn't look that appetizing to me, so I (and 2 or 3 others) ordered off the menu. Well, that meant most were done while the rest of us were just getting our orders. I wolfed down my omlett as well as I could. But it was a huge omlett, with toast and grits. Far more than I normally eat for breakfast. I definitely did NOT want to overeat before a strenuous morning, so I ate until I was full and left a third of the omlet, and half the toast and grits. Good breakfast though.
On arrival at the kite camp, they had us unroll and set up the kites ourselves. This took some time, and the instructors came and fixed any errors. These water kites were a bit different than the land kites. The leading edge is inflated as well as a small handful ribs perpendicular to the leading edge. These inflated sections give the kite its basic wing shape, and it can 'catch' the wind easily after this. You have to either hold onto the kite, or put something heavy on it or it will fly away all by itself. So we inflated the leading edges and structural ribs. We were now just about ready to take to the water.
However, although the day was much much warmer than Saturday (very pleasant in fact), the water temperature had dropped to about 62 degrees. This is colder than most mountain white-water I've been on. Alghough 62 may not sound so, it is definitely *cold*. Hugh and Glenn ran off to get us all wet-suites.
This was the first time I'd ever been in a wet-suite, and it was strange. A few of the suites were purchased brand new, and those who got them had a real struggle getting into them. I got into mine without much difficulty, but I did put it on backwards at first. Its a tight fit, and not particularly uncomfortable. In the sun it can get hot, but it was still in the mid to upper 70s, so that kind of warmth was just fine for this kid from Florida.
Off we went into the water with our kites. Our feet and ankles were exposed, and I really felt the cold of the water, but the suites were amazing at keeping the cold out and away from my body. This was great! We powered boated off not very far to close to a small island in the sound, jumped out with the instructors and kites, and began doing our kite-flying controls we had learned the previous day.
Soon the instructors had us try dipping the kite into the power-zone to get a feel for it on the water. This was way different than on land. There you wanted to lean back on it to keep from being dragged over rocks, pavement, etc. Here, it was more difficult to lean back, and it didn't much matter anyway - we were supposed to learn to get dragged. Getting dragged that first time was a bit of a surprise. The power is pretty intense, and you learn quickly how to keep your head above water. If the power stroke is strong enough, it lifts you out of the water altogether. However because you're dragging in the direction of the kite, the kite eventually drops from the sky. So another part of the lesson is to learn, where possible, how to recover the kite to the left or right side of the power zone, before it hits water - this lets it gently rise overhead again.
If the kite actually collapses into the water, its a bit of a trick to get it back in the air, but again, the kites today are so advanced that with a few pulls on the correct control lines, its not too difficult at all - if your wind is good. Our wind that morning was not good. We had maybe 40 minutes of 5 to 8 mph wind and a bit of flying, but then it died to between 0 and 3 mph. All kites were in the water, and even the instructors could not get them up for very long. So after about 2 hours of this, we returned to the shore for lunch. Weather reports indicated the wind would pick up in the afternoon.
Lunch was picked up from Subway sandwiches. I wasn't very hungry yet because of that huge breakfast, so in order to wake my appetite I ordered a BMT sandwich - hard salamis, not very healthy, but yummy. Most of us got 6 inch sandwiches. Nate got a foot-long, unbelievable. I think I'd puke after eating that much along with the work to come in the afternoon.
Come afternoon, the winds had picked up, and we had great fun out on the water. Finally we were ready to try our luck on the boards. This was *hard*. Nearly everyone wiped out on their first round of trying this. I tried it 3 or 4 times, and got awkwardly dragged throught the water, losing the board each time. Barry Hawes made it up for a brief second on his first try though - I think he might have been the first one to do so. Lawrie Gibson's first try was themost spectacular. Just after getting her feet on the board, her kite dipped too deep into the power-zone and took off. Of course, she was already hooked-into it, so she went with it, and launched about 8 to 10 feet into the air, and maybe 20 feet down wind. Wow, that was great! But she forgot to take the board with her :).
After my first round of trying, I seriously considered not trying again. I wasn't aweful, but it wasn't so pleasant being simply dragged throgh the water while in this ungainly posture on the board. But 40 mintutes later, when it came around my turn again, I had managed to overcome the desire to give up. This time was much better, and I actually made it up for just under a second. That was way cool! I think I could actually do this if I had another half day or so at it. Glenn was telling us the night before that we're gonna start going towards the kite, but then that will kill power on the kite, and we'll both come down. He said after getting up, redirect the board to be more sideways to the kite, thus keeping tension on the kite and retaining power. It seems I remembered only the last part, and kept sideways to the kite the whole time. That doesn't work. I've got to point towards the kite until I'm up - this I didn't do.
As we were in 3 groups of 4, I didn't see everyone, but I heard that a small handful of us had some successes. Barry was the best in our group, but I heard that Hugh, Justin, and Mo also did well.
Towards mid afternoon, the wind died down again, and lots of time was spent trying to get our kite back up in the air. Finally we all knocked off, but before giving up, I had transitioned to another group who's kite was taking the air better. I got a last chance to let the kite drag me around a bit. This time, I let go of my caution and dropped the kite over and over again into the power zone. Oh my gosh. What a blast! It hauled me half out of the water for 10 feet and came out of the zone. I immediately sent it back the other way and into the zone again, and I was off for another fast 10 foot drag. I got to do this continuously for about 7 or 8 times, and got near the shore line where I had to stop. The instructor finally caught up with me and took over to land the kite, while I stood at its length and caught it as it came down.
I'd really like to try that again sometime.
We pealed ourselves out of the wetsuites, dried off, changed, and climbed back on the bus. Back at the house, we all showered and emptied the house of our stuff. Then we were off back to Raleigh. The day on the water, in the sun, apparently beat us all up, because the first hour or so of the return trip was completely quiet - everyone was sleeping. Eventually, we pulled off for a quick dinner at a Bojangles Chicken. Greasy fried chicken, mashed potatos, biscuits, super-saturated sweet tea. That'll wake me up!
For the rest of the trip back, I listened to podcasts from NPR and The Economist I had donwloaded to my iPod prior to leaving on Friday.
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