Well, after 32 glorious days in the windsports paradise of Corpus Christi, we finally made our departure. We snuck out from in front of Pete Nordby's house around 9am, dropped a bottle of wine and profuse thanks to the Kite Saviours with the Kayak, cruised by Oliver's and dropped our Blue Hawaii kiteboard on commission, then headed north on 37. Destination: Houston International. Package: The Boy. My bro had grabbed a last minute ticket on Priceline and had managed to squeeze us into his schedule...we were stoked!
The Boy and The B.
We went straight from the airport to Galveston, anxious to get our guest to stick his feet in the 80+ water and ready to try the kite. Thanks to Houston traffic, by the time we got down to the beach and grabbed something to eat, the sun was running away. But Joel was eager and we were more than willing, so we looked for a 40-foot-long bare spot to park by the beach so we could get out a kite and let him fly it into the night air.
Practicing boom control in the camper.
The wind was light, so we pumped up the 6.5 and released the baby blue sail into approaching darkness. Joel, donning harness for the first time ever, guided the kite from horizon to horizon, eventually getting bold enough to be drug, heels first, across the soft Galveston sand. When the kite finally came down, he declared that he would get a setup just to drag around on the beach!
Joel the Kiter.
We spent the next several days at the Texas City Dike in simultaneous tri-level learning: Joel learning kite control and board balance, I worked on staying to weather, and Brant started trying double backs. We met up with the local kite heads, half-a-dozen windsurfers who took up kiting for the lighter wind practicality and the sheer radicality of the sport. They all flew four-lines, and shared the beach with the multitude of windsurfers who colored the water with dancing sails. So far, no rivalry had sprung up between the two camps, and aside from the mishaps of trail-by-error, kiting had taken off successfully in Texas City. Incredible enthusiasm has been the bride of kiteboarding, for everyone we've met involved in the sport has excitement coming out of his ears.
Recruiting Future Kiteboarders of America.
With the cool and constant seabreeze, we camped out on the dike, which aside from being a great wind spot, also lays claim to being the longest man-made fishing pier in existance. Since the wind blows across the dike and sideshore to the windsurfing area, the dike ends up smoothing out the chop on the leeward side. Most cool. Plus, the entire area is encompassed by a huge, beautiful park, with bike and blading paths winding for a couple miles through lush foliage, along calm waterways, and by statuesque steel sculptures and displays of old fighter planes frozen in flight.
Camping on the dike.
On our last evening on the dike, a young girl passed us, carrying a large plastic bucket gripped tightly between her small hands. Peering into the bucket, we saw it was tickling with crabs. She dumped the bucket into an industrial-size water cooler, then headed back to the shore, picking her path gingerly over the rip rap with bare feet. We followed her, and saw two sandaled feet floating on the surface. Shortly, the body attached to the feet popped up for a breath, black rubber glove costuming his right hand, bare left hand clutching a crab tightly, broad smile on his mustached face. He placed the crab in the bucket, and then disappeared again under the dark water. We learned he and his daughter came down from Houston once a week or so, and while he blindly felt around in the crevaces for crab-shaped rocks, she carted his finds back and forth to their truck. Both father and daughter couldn't say enough about how good crabs were, and they went into a rendition about the variations on crab preparation akin to Bubba with his shrimp.
Crab man, braver than us.
The girl pulled a snapping crab from the bucket, telling us that she's tried catching them twice, and had only been "bit" once before. At which point in her story the crab she was holding promptly got hold of her thumb and settled in for battle. I swear the crab was grinning.
She moved up to her tip-toes and spread out her fingers taut, making distress noises alternatively in English and Spanish. Joel was closest, and she begged him to hit the crab with a rock. He obliged, tap, tap, tap, with the force of a doormouse.
"HIT IT!" the girl yelped. Tap, tap, tap.
"Come on Joel, use the force," Brant and I chimed in. "It's pinching her. Hit it!" Finally the crab relented, tired of being tapped gently by Joel the Warrior.
Moments before the attack...
The floating sandals morphed into man again, and we marveled at this dangerous hunting technique. Joel and I tried to get Brant in the water to try his hand at it, but he decided he wanted to ensure his hand was in working order, and opted out.
So we had chicken, instead of crab, for dinner that night.
On Monday night, we dropped Joel off at the Houston Airport, with barely a few minutes to spare. Rather than responsibly delivering him an hour before his scheduled flight, we spent those last moments searching out the nearest Fuddrucker's. That's home to the World's Greatest Hamburger, and all of our taste buds had joined in a coup against the airline regulations in favor of The Original Fudd. It was a great send-off.
The Boy....stoked.
And so the world's population of kiteboarders grew by one. And, we were assured, The Boy will be back.
