Flying in the hook.

Tuesday the spreader bar for my Dakine Fusion Seat Harness came. That's a contraption you strap on which allows you to anchor the pull of a large kite onto a low center of gravity on your body. I hadn't put the pieces together because I dreaded the assumed realization that it wouldn't fit. Urged out into the sun, wind and light rain by my kiteboarder-to-be friend this afternoon, I hooked it all up and... with one minor issue, it fit. Shazam!

Taking Yoda, our Hydra 350 from HQ, we hit a field next to the slammer here in Salem. The first feel was... hard to put into words. I've always loved flying kites, loved the feeling of the power. But up to this point, my kite flying was like chastely holding hands with a lover. Flying in the hook is like actually coming together as one. The feeling is just... amazing. It's a partnership, not a struggle as it has always felt. It was a visceral, seductive feel that was scary as hell and inviting at the same time.

The kite responds so much more sharply than when flying with the bar in your hands. How is that? You can steer with two fingers if you like! The wind was gusty and thready, and my legs stiff and unresponsive at first. But soon I started to give into it, giving up the fight and seeking to work with it.

Then a gust came up, caught me off guard, and threw my ass on the ground -- again. I actually bounced on my left shoulder, three times! Damn, that hurt. Luckily, I'm resilient. And well padded.

Kites, air and water.

[This post mysteriously disappeared; luckily, Google had already cached it so I was able to recreate!]


As a kid, I loved kites, but didn't get much wind time. As an adult I thought kites were for kids. Moving to the Pacific Northwest, however, I learned that BIG kites are for BIG KIDS!

For the last few years, Scot and I have gone to kite festivals and watched amazing creations of fabric and design fly high. Blessed we are to have such greats like Gomberg nearby! (One year for Scot's birthday I called them to order the line laundry pandas; I talked to David himself! He was out of stock, but assured me he'd whip me up a set and get them out in time for the big day. I felt like a superstar!)

We've amassed a collection of kites, getting a little bigger each year. Last year's purchase was a medium sized sport multi line foil, an HQ Symphony 2.1. Not a powerkite, really, but more kite than most people ever fly for sure. (See the lovely Symphone line at HQ!) My first fly of it was in a stiff wind while visiting the International Kite Festival in Long Beach, WA. It was a thrill to realize this kitehad more than enough pull to stand me up from a seated position. It's flown with two wrist straps, and later on at a kite shop in Lincoln City the gentleman behind the counter heard me talking excitedly about it. Scot purchased something and for some reason, the owner handed me two padded wrist straps and said, "Yours. Free. You'll need them. That won't be your last kite."

We were considering a Peter Lynn show kite as the next step up, or a LARGE lifter.

Then, something happened. One of those events that connects the dots and... sets you down a path. A few months ago, a friend and I headed to the coast to help with the SOLV beach cleanup, and I brought along some kites to play with after the work was done. We sent up my orange Giant Ghost Delta with some line laundry (after once again shelving the lifter because of its wind pickyness); then I pulled out the Symphony.

What a blast that was. The fun lasted for quite a long time, until after one too many slams on the leading edge caused us to blow a seam! Despite the kite injury, we left the beach hours later with me happy as a clam because someone actually went kiting with me and had fun, and I could see he was stoked from the wind play as well.

Here's where it all comes together. We headed to the Pelican Pub in Lincoln City for dinner. We wait for a bit as they are busy, and then are shown the perfect table, the booth that's right in the center of their windows on the beach. Wouldn't you know, there's a guy riding the waves out there, but not a surfer. He's kitesurfing. We have the perfect view of him playing in the waves in front of us. I wistfully watched, thinking back to an afternoon I'd watched a guy with a big ass kite and a harness bouncing down the beach at Seaside, taking large, lofty, wind-lifted steps with the occasional long distance float thanks to his kite. Then I'd watched him with wistful want, and the same feeling washed over me again. As I'm deep in that mindset I hear...

"We should do that."

(That's one of the things I appreciate about this person; he'll make statements such as this, or "That needs to happen," and approach something from an angle totally different from mine. I'm all impetuous, impulsive and adventurous when it comes to humor, love, food, sex or fiscal matters, but suggest something even mildly athletic with a physical risk or challenge and I'm all like, "Let's catalogue the reasons that this isn't a good idea." We all have a good idea where that one came from.)

And doing it I am. We bought a trainerkite and have chased the wind a few times a week since. We've had great afternoons in a field or on the beach with a stiff 15, and stood out in the middle of fields trying to coax enough out of a 3 to keep the HQ Hydra 350 in the air... standing there like disappointed children with long faces when we can't. (But even on those afternoons we get enough to get a little flight in.)


(Amusingly, the image to the left is clearly not a "real" image. Anyone see why?)
There's something amazingly cool to stand just beyond the reach of the lines and see a big, filled arc of a kite hiss by, or standing at the bar and hear it cut through the wind, giving a pull to one side and seeing and feeling the kite turn. He's more into jumps and getting air, and I'm still trying to just keep my face out of the dirt with a dream of someday partnering my love of wind and water together for simple movement... I'll ponder tricks later. (Many great face plants I've done, thanks to a general lack of physical grace, a poor understanding of basics physics, and delayed reaction to kite pull; instead of dropping my butt to counter balance, I let it get the best of me and have a tendency to let go waaaay too late when its clear things are going south. (Hey, that tenacity comes in handy in other areas!) There's actually video of one that resulted in a huge bruise on my pelvis as beach sand is much harder than it looks, but thankfully that hasn't hit the airwaves. Yet.)

This path has a long laundry list of things to do; my next step is hooking the kiteup to a harness (already obtained this one) which will help distribute the weight to a lower center of gravity (fewer faceplants). I'm signing up to attend a wakeboard camp early this summer to get the hang of moving a board on water. Then will be some kiteboard training up in the Gorge and then... the purchase of my first big kite. Hopes to move through all this during the summer... that's going to be a challenge.

And in between, trying to lose as much weight as possible and improve upper body strength and stamina because I'm going to need it. And make sure the health insurance coverage stays in place. 

Flying High at the Lincoln City Fall Kite Festival

For various reasons my plans to camp fell through, then my plans to get up early and leave with plans to get there early to stake out a spot in the parking lot fell through. Thanks universe... you saved us! We arrived at 1:30, and were surprised to see very few things in the air. Some larger items were being unpacked and prepare for flight.

Turns out the winds simply were absent in the morning, it wasn't until the afternoon that a breeze picked up.

We were able to get all our big toys up... of course none of our big toys are big in the big scheme of things. One has to dream. =-)

The ghost delta got a lot of looks. Scot's Giant Delta is awesome, and looked very cute with the trio of pandas which were my birthday gift to him earlier this year.

All of our larger items are from Gomberg. We are like a two person Gomberg show. We deserve a t-shirt or something, dontcha think?

Gettin' it up this weekend on the Oregon Coast.

Leah and I--accompanied by Milo and Winston who, for the most part, got along smashingly--headed to Beverly Beach State Park for a few nights of camping. It was full capacity in the campgrounds. Friday's mild weather gave way to a rockin' thunderstorm with monsoon like rains Friday night after went to bed. Thunder and lightening! Winston and I stayed fairly dry in our cozy den in the back of the truck. But damn, did it rain. Long and hard.

Water was the theme of the trip. Shortly after arriving, the campers across the road from us had a little issue with their dog. While big and beautiful, this was her first time camping. As Leah walked Milo down the road, the dog saw him. From the back of the camp site, this dog launched toward the road, not yet quite aware that she is tethered to a stake in the center of the campsite. By the time she reached the end of her rope just short of the road, she was really jetting. Caught by the end of the rope while running full speed she was jerked by the neck so violently that her back end swung around, knocking into the 4x4 upright that held the fresh water spigot so hard that it broke the pipe off at the ground. It's amazing she wasn't injured.

Hilarity ensued as a well meaning but rather bumbling park ranger scratched his head and tried 101 things that did not help the situation. Apparently the protocol for how to shut the water off is not something that is well known. First there was unseen bubbling which spawned a small lake in the campsite, which with some digging became a full blown mini-geiser. Amusing to watch, especially since there was no danger to our camp site.

Once they did get it shut off, this meant no bathrooms in our circle. Luckily, the circles are tight, and the bathrooms/showers in D loop were close by.

In almost four years we'd never camped at Beverly Beach. We'll be back! Great beach access, which we took advantage of Saturday. I lugged a small amount of flying gear out with us, and set about staging a single handed show. While it might seem light a simple little hobby, the reality is that kites can be dangerous -- and the larger they are, the moreso. We don't have anything that counts as "really big," but it pays to learn safe habits early.

The wind was light and not always steady, which caused some problems with the Super Sled. I always put on the tube tails, and I flew our new twirling windsock on it, along with the small Gomberg line laundry I love so much. It dipped once, and a family of kiters nearby got one tangled in the tails. Everyone was pleasant, they were afraid they'd pissed "the big kiter" off, but I simply walked the line down enough so that we could untangle, and then I let her back up.

The Giant Ghost Delta rose toward the clouds with ease during her maiden voyage. It's a beautiful kite with long, fluttering tails of satin. The bottom is actually 11 foot wide, the tails are 30 feet long. Lesson: a delta has MUCH more pull than anything I've flown, which tends towards sleds, or parafoils which are flown using wrist straps so you don't really work with bare line. I had a new spool of 500 ft of line. I let out about half, I didn't want to have to reel it all back in. That's the sucky part. =-)

While working with the line to create a slack spot in which to create an overhand loop I thought I'd just wrap it around my finger, and... bad idea. This kite pulls enough in light wind that if a gust came up, injury could occur. Okay, no more using body parts to anchor things.

I used one large sand anchor to hold both kites; as the sled and delta have vastly different flight angles this worked easily. I need to get more so I can space them out. Thankfully, I learned how to make an overhand loop to secure a line at any point, and I tend to also want a "safety" around my spool just in case. So I connect two of the lines of the sand anchor through the spool using a carabiner.

It's amazing what you can do with just two knots: the lark's head and the overhand loop.

Here is two really bad iPhone snap from my vantage point sitting by the sand anchor.

Look! Up in the sky! What is that!?

If you want something fun, relaxing, colorful, and sandy to do weekend after next, I highly recommend heading to Lincoln City for the Summer Kite Festival. We've been a number of years now as spectators, but this year we are bringing our gear and taking claim to a little spot in the sky, alongside many others!

While we have graduated up to "big" kites, that's a relative assessment, and our "big" doesn't stand up at all to some of the really awesome flying things people bring. I admit that kite fever has come with an affliction of "bigger is better."

I just need to remember to bring the sunscreen AND apply it early this time.