Pics from Phuket Thailand (July '07)

For lack of anything to post I decided to just post some pics taken from our trip to Phuket last year. Did some kitesurfing (but I forgot the locations) and tried to learn how to surf. Did the touristy things as well. It's a great place to go Thailand. I would certainly would want to go back and kite there some more.

an epic session...

After my recent post I just realized I haven't posted about last last Sunday's epic session (the first of many more epic sessions to come). There must have been at least 15 kiters at North Haven aka The Wall. That got me excited. I enjoy kiting more when there are other kiters around, not only is it safer but I also get inspired to do better. Anyways the wind was blowing pretty well that day, my 14meter was perfect that day. I decided to go use my old Airush decoy 135 board since the wind was good and that board let's me ride upwind better. I decided to just follow the other locals and ride the same direction they were going... I noticed several of them were riding very near the rock wall to take advantage of the flat water that the rock wall provides (it's actually a barrier of rocks that acts as a wall to block the waves coming from the other side...hmm did that make sense?). So I decided to go ride along that direction as well and boy was it awesome... I was gliding thru the water so fast, I dont't think I've kited that fast before. It was exhilirating. So basically that's what I did for the next hour or so, just ride beside the wall and go as fast as I possible could. I was also able to work on my toeside and transitions as well. I did a few jumps but kept losing my board, the footstraps of the Airush are too wide for my feet and I probably was doing it wrong too hehe. Anyway it was all good that day, no accidents or near accidents, my kite was up all the time and I didn't lose my board. It's been awhile since I've had a kiting day like this, I can't wait to go kiting again.

Stop, It's too big...

Thats what I kept telling myself when I went kiting last Sunday... Watching other people kiteboarding on a late Sunday afternoon, I decided to rig up even if at the back of my mind I knew the my 14M kite was too big for this weather. I didn't have a wind meter with me so i could only guess-timate it was blowing more than 20 knots. I setup my kite on the lowest knot and fully depowered yet I kept getting lifted from stand still (my kite at 12 o'clock). That inner voice inside me started to change tune to, "don't do it" and "land your kite or you could end up on the 6 o'clock news"... Thankfully Sherlyne had stayed a bit longer and I was able to signal to her that I wanted to land the kite, thou she herself struggled to hold on and land the kite, I was able to abort a possible disaster. Minutes after landing my kite a huge rain cloud appeard and the wind just amped up even more... The kiters who were there didn't seem to mind but then again they were on much smaller kites. So I packed up my gear and left the scene, disappointed at not being able to kiting. "You'll have another day, don't worry" the inner voice inside me said.

Back once again....

It has finally happened. I am now living (and working) in Adelaide, Australia. I arrived on April 12 together with my better half and a lot of things have happened since then but I am not about to blog about it since this blog is all about my kite boarding and not about details of my life.

Winter had just begun and I’m a bit bummed by it only because I haven’t gone kite boarding in 3 months. I was so looking forward to weekends kiting here since we live like 15 minutes from one of the kite spots but the weather has just been awfully cold. On an average day it would be 10-12 degrees. The wind made it even colder.

My gear arrived like a month after and even then I didn’t have a wetsuit. I logged on to www.seabreeze.com.au , and introduced myself in the SA forum. I got a few welcome messages which was nice. Fast forward. My gear finally arrived and I decided to go on my first session despite not having a wetsuit. I just couldn’t wait anymore. I had an idea of how cold the water could be but that didn’t matter, I just had to get out on the water.

I went over to this spot called “The Wall” at North Haven. It’s called the wall because of the barrier of rocks that separates the shipping lane from the beach. It makes for great flat water. It also is home to what locals call “white tips” also known as sharks. I am told that dolphins can be found there as well.

As expected the water was freezing cold. The wind was blowing somewhere around 14-16 knots cross off shore. There were around 8-10 kite boarders when I arrived. After scoping the scene I decided to give it a go. Dressed in board shorts and two rash guards I quickly realized just how cold, cold can be. I had at least 20 minutes of kite boarding when on my last run, heading back, I crashed into the water while attempting a pathetic raley.

In the process I had been separated from my board. I had tried desperately to body drag upwind to get it but it was just pointless. Till this day I have not figured out how it’s done. 5 minutes (it seemed much longer) swimming in very cold unfamiliar waters, I figured I better body drag back to shore before I go into hypothermia (I don’t know if I am exaggerating but it was really very cold).

Fortunately some kind hearted kiter took notice of my floating board and carried it back. I tried convince my brain that it wasn’t as cold as it really was but that didn’t last long. Not only was my knees shaking but my butt as well. Funny feeling thou. My nose was blue and numb as well as my feet.

I put on my jacket and quickly took my stuff back to the parking lot. It was harder than usual to fold the kite since I was freezing my ass off. The wind wasn’t helping as well so I moved behind a shed to block the wind. I didn’t bother to pack up properly I just wanted to get into the car and turn on the heater. I chucked in my sand filled, poorly folded kite at the boot and drove away. Little did I know that behind the shed, I had left my bar.

The next day, as I woke up. I started going through my head the stuff I had to do for the day. At that moment in time I was still unemployed so I had lots of time in my hands hehe. I was thinking about the boot of the car and how messy my stuff was when I realized hmmm I don’t think I recall chucking the bar in. I went to the garage and unpacked the gear and realized I had left the bar behind the shed.

I quickly posted my lost bar ad in the forum, with hopes someone would be kind enough to return it. 2 and a half weeks had gone by but no one has returned it. I had already placed an order with Onboard for a new bar, which would have cost me a lot considering I was unemployed. Luckily on the 3rd week, I got a call saying my bar has been found and that I can pick it up at Phil’s Kiteshop. Yippiee.

No wind no cry....

What's a kiteboarder to do when there's no wind? go wakeboarding...me likey!

I recently discovered this new wakeboarding spot about 30-45 minutes away from town. It's called Carasol . My NZ buddy Richard and I decided to check it out. Here are a some of the pics.

@ Kuantan March 8-9

Drove down to Balok hoping the monsoon wind would still be blowing. Thankfully we had two good days of wind around 12knots. I decided to use my Airush decoy board that weekend coz the weekend before I used the Jimmy Lewis the whole time. I could get better upwind with the Airush which is why I decided to keep it. It doesn't do well for jumps mainly because the footstraps on it are all stretched out and I end up losing the board alot of times.

I still use a leash, (a Dakine surfboard leash) coz I 've been losing my board quite frequently. Last Sunday I broke the leash, the dang thing just snapped. I was forced to ride without it. I took it as a sign from above that I had to progress to riding without one. So made sure not to ride too far from the shore and practiced jumping near the surf. Fortunately it all worked out well, I lost the board several times but was able to retrieve it much easier since it was closer to the shore. I felt like a real pro now hehe.

My friend Andy got his new kite last weekend, a Slingshot Link 15M. He set it up like a C kite without the 5th line. He let me use it a couple of times and here is what I have to say about it.

What surprised me first and foremost was the zero bar pressure. It took awhile for me to get used to not having any pressure on the bar. I had a hard time feeling where the kite was, I constantly had to keep looking at the kite, eventually thou I got the hang of it.

It's turning speed is amazing. Very fast compared to my 14m Contra. Zero bar pressure + quick turning speed = you better keep an eye on the kite. The fast turning speed makes it so easy to get some air. There were times when I just wanted to make a simple transition but I still ended up catching some air. I was able to land some jumps which I normally couldn't with the 14m Contra .

Not much depower. I had such a difficult time going back up wind coz there was so much power, the kite kept dragging me downwind towards the shore. Sadly on my second run, I was back doing the walk of shame. Well it could have been the setup of the kite or my lack of riding skills which could be blamed for or maybe the wind was a bit too much for its size.

Overall I enjoyed the whole experience. I had fun jumping with it but I wouldn't recommend it for beginners. There's just too much information to be processed and understood for someone just learning to kite. This kite would just add to that and the beginner might end up getting overwhelmed. Better to stick to a bow kite.

Gone in 60 seconds....

Just like that I've totally stopped blogging. No excuses. I've just totally took it out of my to do list, not like I have a lot of stuff to do. You know what I mean. If not for the clamor of updates from my legion of blog fans (from last count hmm 1, yeah you mr.wind-x guy no.2) out there I would have totally left this blog to rot in someones hard drive.

It's been like what 5months since my last post?... so much stuff has happened, I don't know where to begin. Expert bloggers help me.

My last post mentioned me and Sherlyne going to Boracay. Ok in a nutshell the trip, the beach, the experience to go back home was great. Kiting wise, it sucked, big time. 6 days and 5 nights, only 1 day of kiting not even 1 day more like 4 hours maybe.

One cool highlight of that trip was to see some folks from Extreme Elements doing their stuff.
We got tons of pics which someday I will post when the moon and the stars are aligned to my liking.

Between then and now, I've been to Kuantan almost if not every weekend. The monsoon wind blew and blew so I've been able to get mucho kiting time and because of that I'm proud to say that I can kite surf already (applause applause). I can go downwind, upwind, transitions, backrolls, raleys, toeside (and handle passes.....not!) Basically I can kitesurf period.

One particular milestone which I would say helped dramatically in my learning was changing the kite I've been using. I sold my 12M switchblade '07 and got a 14M Contra '07 (2nd hand) courtesy of Ken "Malaysia's godfather of Kiteboarding" Tan. The package came with a 135 Jimmy lewis Model 3 board, now how sweet is that? Sorry I'd rather not disclose the price, you guys might start buying his stuff and I'll be out of the loop, yeah selfish me.



Eversince the gear change my skillz just improved tremendously. I also have to attribute the monsoon wind which has been pretty much excellent.
I've improved alot since the gear change so much so that I joined the Kuantan Challenge aka kiteboard racing competition. It was just me and my friends and a couple of Thai's that joined but the experience was nonetheless memorable.




It would have been totally awesome if I had won the beginners category if not for two factors. One was Martin ( a Brit now based in Kuantan) being put in the same category as me, when in fact he should have been classified in the professionals category and the second was me not competing in 2 of the 4 races. Why you may ask? well for one I was having lunch when they decided to start the race which was around 12ish and by the time the 2nd race started I was in the middle of the ocean warming up.
Anyways i'm cool with all that, the experience alone totally made up for whatever screw ups that happened.

That pretty much is the gist of all that has happened since then. I left out a lot of little details which really would just turn this post into a novel.

Oh by the way, before I end this post let me just announce that Sherlyne and I are moving to the land down under, Australia for the geographically challenged nitwit. Were moving to Adelaide on April 7th so that's a whole new post right there.

till then....hope and pray I keep this updated.
To my legion of blog fans out there thank you for being so patient and constantly checking this site for updates. Without you all I would be nothing..nothing. (lol)