20 Miles Kiteboarding At Wayside Park

Had a cold but fun good session in the sound at Wayside park today, wind was highly variable, up and down between 12 and 19 knots from the NNW.   I would alternate between being fighting to stay on plane to being nicely powered.    I was on a Rebel 14 meter kite and split the time between a twin tip and a strapless surfboard.   It was cooooold, 45 – 50 F, I had to take a break in the middle to get some warmth back in my fingertips.  My Garmin Connect tracks are here.

16 Miles Kiteboarding In The Gulf On Christmas Eve Eve

Had a good session in the Gulf yesterday, wind was 14 – 22 knots ESE, with overhead wind swell on the outside.  I was on a Rebel 14 meter kite and split the time between a twin tip and a strapless surfboard.   Forecast for today (Christmas Eve) called for 30 knots, but it hasn’t showed up yet, and it’s been raining all day.  Maybe Santa will deliver again on Christmas day!!

You ARE Musically Talented, By Way Of The Virtual Piano

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Nothing Like A Session To Rinse Off The Stress Of The Week

I’m taking the next week off for vacation to drive down to Florida and visit a friend down in my college town of Melbourne Beach.  I took the off chance to divert slightly on my route and stop off at Isle of Palms to try to catch a kiteboarding session.  There has been absolutely NO wind for 3 weeks in IOP, which is very strange for this time of year, when it normally fires every afternoon like clockwork due to the lowcountry thermal.  Coastal Marine Forecast indicated a chance for late afternoon wind, so I took a chance.  It wasn’t looking promising on the 2.5 hour drive down from Aiken, but as I made the final approach into Isle of Palms, I saw a number of kites in the air.  Oh Yeah!!

Because there has been a wind drought, everyone was there and I saw quite a few of my kitebudddies there.  Wind was pretty light, 14 – 16kts, so I went out on a 14meter and a strapless surfboard.  Had fun for about 20 minutes, there were waist high waves, which were hittable.  I saw a storm coming, but it didn’t look threatening, until I heard the ominous crack of thunder as I was tacking out close to a mile offshore.  Nothing will get me heading back to the beach more quickly than thunder, when I have a kite up, not even a fin from Mr Gray.

Waited it out on the beach in the driving  rain with my friends for a while, and eventually about half of them gave up and bailed.  Zack had 2 SUP’s on his truck, and he was kind enough to let me borrow an epoxy Infinity 11’6″for an hour while we waited for the wind to fill in.  He is the standup paddlesurf soul ninja, I am a rank beginner, but had fun nonetheless.

Eventually it cleared up, the sun came out and the wind returned.  We put the kites back up and had a great session for an hour or so.  The direction shifted, making the lefts totally slappable on the inside, loads of fun. A blazing red sunset dropped beneath the clouds which made for a pretty classic session in the glassed off connections.  Total session was about 12.5 miles, include the Stand-up Paddlesurfing, according to my Garmin Connect trace

We hit the beach tired and grinning ear to ear, which was the perfect finish to a tough week in my business.

BVI Trip: April 6 – Peter Island To Salt Island To Virgin Gorda

We pulled anchor early the next AM to head over to Salt Island to dive the wreck of the Rhone.  Salt Island is an uninhabited island which historically was used to mine salt from the 2 large salt ponds on the island.  The RMS Rhone sunk in 1867, and is one of the few wreck dives where you can see such large portions of the ship’s structure. We were snorkelling only but free dove to 65 – 75 feet and could touch cannons, hatches etc. A great dive. Make sure you hike up the hill by the large salt pond on Salt Island to get the amazing views of the small cove on the north east side of Salt Island.

We then cruised a round Cooper and Ginger Island and over to Fallen Jerusalem.   Fallen Jerusalem is a great spot to anchor swim and snorkel, and it doesn’t get near as crowded as the nearby and more famous Baths on Virgin Gorda.  I’m not sure what caused it, but there are literally tens of thousands of dead conch shells on the bottom at Fallen Jerusalem, making for an interesting snorkel. We stayed anchored there, but took the tender over to the Baths. This is an interesting hike through many aquatic caves, but I recommend going first thing in the morning, or it is likely to be totally overrun by tourists and very crowded. We then returned to the Moonshadow, and sailed over to Savannah Bay, our anchorage for the evening. After some wakeboarding behind the tender and some cocktails, we were treated to an epic sunset, with great views of Tortola and the Dogs.

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BVI Trip: April 5 – Norman Island to the Indians To Peter Island

After a peaceful night’s sleep in the Norman Island Bight, we pulled anchor relatively early and motored out to the Indians.  This popular diving spot has limited mooring balls so we wanted to get out there before the crowd so we could grab a spot.
The Indians is a great dive spot, basically 5 rock outcroppings which rise starkly out of the water.  Underneath the surface there are numerous walls, cliffs and tunnels with an amazing variety of sea life based on the positioning in tidal currents.  Leah and I took the sea kayak for a paddle around Pelican Island.

We then sailed to Deadman’s Bay on Peter Island for the afternoon.  We had a nice lunch on the boat and then went to the beach to chill.
The breeze was filling in , even though Deadman’s Bay is somewhat shielded from the prevailing trades  by the rock cliffs on the east end. I could see whitecaps out in the channel, and I was itching to see if I could could get the kite up, so I went to the beach to rig.  I was able to launch but the wind was too light / variable to do much riding. The wind was effectively blowing straight offshore once I got out the bay, and I was a little bit worried about drifting across to Tortola if I dropped the kite, so I bagged it.

We did some tubing in the bay behind the tender, which my daughters loved.  Then we motored over to Grand Harbor, had sunset cocktails and dinner, and settled down for the evening.

BVI Trip: April 4 – St Thomas to Tortola to Norman Island

In April of 2009, my family and I took a great vacation aboard a charter catamaran from Voyage Charters.  We sailed for 8 days on the Moon Shadow, a totally luxurious 58 ft Voyage catamaran.  This honestly was the best vacation our family has ever taken, combining natural beauty, relaxation, fun and quality family time (no internet or SMS most of the time).  I’ve been meaning for a long time to chronicle briefly our itinerary, which I will do in the next series of posts.

We actually flew into St Thomas on April 3, and spent the night at the Marriott on St Thomas.  On April 4, we took the ferry over to Tortola and then met up with our crew, Keith (Captain, Bartender and fellow kiteboarder) and Meghan (Mate and Chef).  We loaded our gear and sailed over to Norman Island.  This is the island where the Pirates of the Caribbean movies were filmed.  There is excellent snorkeling in “The Caves”, and there are literally some caves where we got so deep that you could not see sunlight anymore.  After a nice late afternoon snorkel, we motored over to the Bight where we anchored for the night.

The Indians

The Indians

Norman Islan Caves

Norman Island Caves

Sunset Over Tortola