Saturday, January 23, 2010

Beginner's Bliss

Some say that learning kiting in New England in Winter is bad because you spend so much time being dragged under, over, and thru the frigid water. Igor and I know that's just a myth perpetuated by tropical resort owners. The trick is to pick a day when the air temp is colder than the 38 F water. Then getting dragged all over the bay warms you up.




Igor practiced water starts for 2 hours in the shallows, getting about 1000 of them, including some nice ones. His determination is unnatural.

I found a sand bar out in the bay with 9" of water over it. This was sweet! I could try any stupid move I wanted and have just enough water to soften my crash. Then all I had to do was stand up in shin deep water, straighten out my brain, and go again.

Plymouth/ Nelson St., Kitesurfed, NE 8-18?, 12 M Kite/ 152 Ply board, With Igor, 34 F Temp.

Picture- cruising over the sandbar, thanks for sending the picture Igor.


Note- tide was 1 hour behind IWindsurf chart.

4 comments:

Scott said...

Sounds awesome!

I need a "lesson" from you in finding the places where the water is shallow (and in what tides) so I can get this sort of time in.

scooper said...

Yeah, it's so much easier in conditions like that! It's cool that there are a few great shallow water spots right near Boston- Nelson St, Duxbury, Dog Beach. You've just got to hit them in the right wind direction and tide.

Steve said...

Sorry, wrong place to put comment but couldn't contact you. I'm looking to relocate around Plymouth (from dead wind Atlanta). Is there good enough windsurfing for me to revive my gear? Went to Canada (way north in Quebec) and used my board once during my 3 weeks vacation but at least I had some fun... I'm not too good at it but I guess your no wind condition would be better than Lake Lanier in Atlanta (which I never tried)...

scooper said...

Steve from Atlanta- Sure, Plymouth is a good spot for it. You've got good sailing at Plymouth and Duxbury in most wind directions, plus it's only 30 to 45 minutes to the Cape for those days when the wind is better there. If you have a flexible work schedule and can go out on some weekdays you'll get some windsurfing every week. If you can just go on weekends you'll find about 2 out of 3 weekends (2 out of 4 sometimes) have some wind. It's much better in the cold half of the year. less wind in the summer. Welcome! Let me know when you arrive. Maybe we can sail together in Plymouth.