As the weekend rolled close, the rain rolled out. The wind came up with the sunshine. Life is good.
As the week unfolded, some progress was in order. I moved into jumping, and I swear that even though Brant said I was about three feet off the water, it felt more like 30! (This is what everyone says when they start jumping with a kite.) With each jump I lost a helluvalot of downwind ground, but I'm taking this one step at a time...I'm sure in a few days I'll get the jumping in without having to walk back up the beach.
Brant with a slightly arced back...
B, meanwhile, took to the surf on his daily sessions. Snubbing the flat water of the sound, over the dunes the waves crashed along the beach and what looks like a big mushpot of wind-chop-meets-shore-line to me appeared to be a huge playground for Brant. During one trip out with local pros Ty Luckett and J.T., the three kiters ripped along the beach. J.T. had the spins down, while Ty pulled clean double back loops in the break zone and used the slope of the sand as much as the pitch of the waves. Brant was on the outside, powering over head-high surf. About 80 feet away, a swell rose up, and as the foam crested along the ridge of the wave, a dolphin broke through the face and arched in mid-air before disappearing below the surface.
"Wow. Big dolphin. That's pretty neat," Brant thought to himself. "Pretty beautiful."
And he continued kiting towards the swell, preparing to hit it.
Then, about 30 feet away and slightly downwind of him, a second dolphin exploded through the face of the wave. Three hundred pounds of muscle and blubber, airborne, flying towards Brant.
"Wow. I could get killed by a dolphin," Brant thought to himself. "Pretty sucky."
So rather than test whether or not wave-riding dolphins are looking both ways before they cross the road, B carved upwind and came back to flip a bit closer to shore, leaving the outside swells to Flipper and friends.
Then, the weirdest thing happened.
Lucy getting ready for a windy session.
We were in the parking lot at Canadian Hole, and Brant was talking to G.S. and I was helping Lucy rig up to go kiting. From across the asphalt,, a guy in board shorts, tank top and blond hair walked up to me.
"Are you with The Extreme Road Trip?"
An enthusiastic nod answered affirmative.
I'm Ryan, you parked in front of our house in Aspen. We sent you an email..."
"NO YOU'RE KIDDING!"
Elizabeth walked up next, one hand on her well-loved cowboy hat to keep it from flying with the wind, shiny black labrador pacing at her side. These were the guys we had sort of met in Aspen months ago, and here they were in Hatteras! I expected little 30-year-old dolls to pop up and start singing that cheesy international rah-rah song from Disneyland. If this reunion didn't prove that it's a small world after all, I don't know what would.
To review, back on April 27th, Ryan and Elizabeth had dropped us an email telling of their plans to embark on a road trip soon, out to California first and then across to Florida. We never actually hooked up in Aspen, but here they were 2000 miles away from the initial encounter, parked a few spaces down from our rig.
Ryan & Izzy
Along with Lucy, who had an epic breakthrough session on the kite, the four of us headed to The Mad Crabber and feasted on spicy dungeness crabs until the restaurant closed. We shared stories and hit it off so great, Brant and I regretted not being able to meet them way back in April. Heavy into backcountry skiing, the two of them were in search of surf on this trip. Since the swell was super blown-out, we're trying to talk them into kiteboarding.
Day after the crab-fest, the wind picked up to 30+. Which doesn't work for learning, and is in fact even too windy for me to go out on our smallest kite. But since the wind showed no signs of slowing, and we were all just hanging out, we embarked on the grand experiment, and double-dragged. Elizabeth and me on the 4.0, and Brant and Ryan on the 5.0. We were wound up, too, with each power stroke pulling each harness-gripping couple up out of the water. Intro to kiteboarding for crazy people.
Then it started raining, so we ditched the outside activities and went for pizza. We'll see what the weather decides to do tomorrow...hopefully we'll get some clean surf or some less-than-gale winds to play in.
