Sailing and Kitesurfing

This sunday was great. Rudy came up to me on Friday and said that the sailing club was going out to Enemanit. I've been wanting to sail with them for awhile, so I said I'd go. We got it cleared with Lenney, which was a big hurdle. Sunday morning I got all my gear together and we headed over to the docks. The "yachties" where all hanging out and talking. They were really cool right off. They all have nice sail boats and most of them live on them full time. Most of them are retired and are traveling around the pacific for fun. This one guy named Mike came up. He had sailed from Hawaii in 25 days by himself. He hadn't seen anything man made for 3 weeks before he got to the Marshall Islands. After talking to him I found out he had a doctorate in Economics. He left San Diego awhile back in is headed for Japan. The next leg of his trip is going to Guam. There are a lot of islands in between, but he isn't going to stop on them.

We all got in little dingies and made the trip out to the boats. We went on Mike's boat and it was just Rudy, this other yachty, Mike and I. I got to pilot the boat for awhile. We just let out the jib and were cruising at about 6-7 knots. If we let the mainsail out we could have cracked 8 knots for sure. We caught up and passed the boat that left before us. I helped put the outboard back on the dingy and we cruised onto shore. Rudy and I laid out my kite and we pumped it up and launched it. He helped me put the board on and I took off. It was my longest ride up to that point and I was really stoked leaving the island with a nice ride. Then I bumbled around for a long time. The wind was strong and I couldn't depower the kite completely. It is really hard to put a board on your feet in the middle of the ocean with a kite dragging you. Finally I got it back on and got some sweet rides in. I would dive the kite to get power and it would lift me out of the water. Then I'd bring it down close to the water for consistant power. Once I was planing there was a lot less resistance and I'd take off. The first few times you do it is the most amazing experience ever. You are flying across the surface of the water. It takes constant focus on the board and the kite. I went faster than I've ever been being pulled behind a boat. Once I started planing I would keep accelerating until I was going so fast I couldn't stay on the board as it bounced across the choppy waves. After a good while I was starting to get worried. Rudy had promised to grab a dingy and come out and get me. The winds were offshore and I was just getting farther from shore. At this point the sailboats were little sticks and the island was white sand and green trees in the distance. I have not idea how far out I was, but Rudy was a welcome sight bouncing across the choppy water. We loaded the kite up and get took me back. It seemed like a good 15 minute ride back. Ofcourse we had to go slow in the chop. I couldn't believe how far I had come.

We hung out with the yachties for awhile. They had some crazy games. One of them involved a guy holding a stick and being blind folded. A girl would hold a toilet paper roll between her knees and direct him to put the stick in. It was pretty funny. What got funnier was Rudy played and for some reason he played the girl part. I even took video for him. There were three cute teachers there from Laura. One of them I'd met before and Rudy had met them all at previous get-togethers. We hung out with them for a bit.

I took one more short kitesurfing run. This time I stood up and took off. The wind was a little lighter and we were close to shore. It was almost glassy and I stayed up for a really long time. I went between the two islands and then got in the wind shadow of the second island. At that point my kite went down because there was no wind. Everyone on shore was really stoked for me and enjoyed watching even though I'm still not very good. That was my longest ride to date. I thing I might have gone about 300 yards or so. I feel like a couple more days of practice like that and I'll be competent at the sport. It's so hard to stay in the water for a long time here. I either get taken out to sea to far or blown onto shore or toward a shipping yard. I may see about renting a dingy for a couple hours next weekend or something.

We loaded back up in the sailboat and sailed back to Shoreline. The wind wasn't as strong coming back and it was slower going. But the three cute teachers were on our boat on the way back and so conversation was nice. Mike, the guy who had been out to sea for so long, was really glad to see females again. I don't think he'd had females on his boat for awhile. Today I'm sore as anything from all that kitesurfing. It's all good though. I need some more long sessions to get good. Previously my longest session has been about 10-15 minutes. The more board time I get the better I'll become and the longer I'll be able to ride. Hopefully conditions will continue to cooperate.