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Date: 12 Jan 2012 17:58:00
Title: Kiteboarding lesson 1 & a salutary lesson for Jane about plumbing
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Yes you read that right - we have started kiteboarding lessons!!  We have been waiting for the right wind speed and direction which has been all week coming.  In the meantime we have been doing a bit of diving and have actually run up the compressor for the first time.  On our second dive yesterday, which John and Glenn planned, the current somewhat caught us out -  it was so strong that we couldn't swim against it so we drifted with it.  As we had the 2 dinghies with us, we picked up the anchors and let the dinghies drag us back - we have never done this before - great fun!!
Anyway back to the kiteboarding, we started with a bit of theory on the beach about safe launching etc, and then moved on to the 'anatomy of the kite' - doesn't that sound grand? Anyway, once we have figured out which line went where, and which pulley did what, we were trussed up into our body suits - great for the figure, they are just like a very tight corset, and headed towards Scottie's kite simulator, a kite rig attached to the beach shack so you can get a feel of how the set up works. From the photos it looks as though we are palm surfing - they were trimming the trees so the fronds and coconuts don't hit unsuspecting tourists as they pass underneath.
Once that was done, it was time to try flying a trainer kite known as a foil - even this had quite a substantial pull as it lifted into the air.  The kite is fastened to the front of your suit and the idea is to be able to fly it at noon, ie straight above your head where there is least power, and also at various points either side such as 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock, 10 o'clock and 11 o'clock and be able to hold it in position and each point.  Once that was achieved, and it is considerably harder than it sounds, we got to try out some 'power strokes'.  In order to lift the kite and get power you have to 'sweep' the kite between noon and 2 o'clock on one side, and noon and 10 o'clock, returning each time to noon. There were several crashes - usually me and I even managed to drop the kite at the instructors feet once or twice and had them ducking to avoid the lines!!!
The kite we then moved onto was a 7 metre kite, quite a basic level kite but very strong in the conditions.  We went through the same drills as before and tried to learn to steer the kite one handed with each hand - that took a bit of practice! Unfortunately for Scottie who was attached to me while I was doing this, I made a few errors and at one stage when things were going slightly pear shaped and he was yelling 'left left left' at me I mixed up my left and right (no change there then) and both of us were dragged face first through the water until the kite crashed and stopped, he at least got a soft landed ending up on top of me, and I got a few scrapes as we were in shallow, fairly rocky water!!
3 hours later and we were getting a bit tired so we called it a day on a good note - I had eventually managed to keep control of the kite for more than 5 minutes at a time.  Tomorrow for our second lesson we get to do upwind body drags for real, where the kite basically drags you face first through the water, strangely enough this is supposed to be fun!! Having done this today and realised how much concentration it takes to keep the kite flying, I dread to think how I will manage to balance on a board at the same time - I will keep you posted, I will try and post pics but as the kite is 100 ft above the person flying it, it can be hard to get good ones.  Also tomorrow being Friday 13th, what effect will that have??
One last thing - I must tell you about what happened to me on Wednesday as this will cheer up anyone who thinks we are having the life of Riley here - I decided to remove the toilet seat fittings to clean them and get rid of the stains on the metal, so I started to take them off.  Now with hindsight, and I am sure you are thinking this, I should have blocked the toilet with a rag before I started - did I? No, and yes you guessed it, the metal fitting went right down the loo!!! Disaster!! Cross as I was with myself, the only thing to do was take the loo to pieces and retrieve the fitting as if it had got into the macerator pump it would have destroyed that and I would have been very unpopular!!  So I had to take the loo apart and of course it had gone down the tube where the unmentionable stuff goes, reach down fish it out and put the loo back together which took me around 3 hours - great!!  Life on a boat just gets better and better!

 John inflating the kite

 Getting ready to launch

 Palm frond surfing on the kite simulator!!!

 Getting the kite up while having my feet firmly anchored to the ground!!

  Swapping with John - can he do any better?

  You can just make out  the wake as John and Scottie get dragged through the waves!!
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