A great manouver during the kite surf competition..
This blog entry is a blow by blow description of our 5 day kite surfing course and how we got into it and what we got out of it. Enjoy.
After a long and complicated deliberations we finally decided that we had had enough of just touring around and watching other people having fun in the sand and the surf, so we decided to try our hand at Kite Surfing.
Ever since we first hit the beaches in Mosqueiro we have been surrounded by Wind surfers and Kite surfers. The poor surfers and boogie boarders are in the minority due to the lack of waves and the fact that they (the waves and logically the surfers) only come out when the tide is up. The wind however is relentless, there is a strong and steady South Easterly blowing all along the coast.
A case in point would be Jericoacoara. The central beaches at Jericoacoara were so packed with wind surfers that it looked like they were surfing on top of each other. The northern beaches had kite surfers going downwind for kilometers. You would see them start a few hundred meters down from the kite surfers and then surf until they went around the point and out of sight around 5km down the beach (there are special buggies labeled "kite taxis" to go and get them). The surfers and boggie boarders would come out late in the afternoon when the tide was up and hit some of the waves at the southern beaches, which were ok, but nothing too impressive. In the central bay they would also hit the waves with long boards and ride the small waves coming in. All in all it looked like the wind surfers and kiters were having most of the fun.
Further along the coast it would get worse, in various places like Paracuru north of Fortaleza there were some gorgeous stretches of sand beaches covered with kite surfers as far as the eye could see.
A good landing after a great manouver at the kite surf competition.
By the time we made it to Cumbuco beach we had decided that we would either have to learn to kite surf or wind surf. Cumbuco being a relatively trendy beach resort just north of Fortaleza had the infrastructure necessary. After having a look around it was decided that it would have to be Kite surfing as wind surfers were in a minority around here. We found a relatively in-expensive pousada in Tabuba beach (a not so trendy beach town next door to Cumbuco), and started too look around for a kite surfing school which would meet our budget and requirements (budget = none, requirements = not laugh us out of town).
The fist two things we quickly noted were, first, that it is an expensive sport to learn and second, that it is a sport for young people. By young I mean in their early 20's.
On further study though, I must admit that it is actually not all that expensive when compared to scuba diving or even skiing. The equipment is expensive but not overly so, and like scuba diving or skiing the major expense is getting to (and staying in) places where you can actually practice the sport.
After having checked every kite surfing school in the area we choose one run by a local, called appropriately Kite Cabana Kitesurf school www.kitecabana.com (website is at the moment not on-line but I assume it will eventually be..), which also has a very nice pousada attached (much too expensive for us unfortunately), and is 50 meters from the beach.
The first day started well. Alex our teacher and apparently the owner of the school, greeted us warmly and started the conversation with "I have a problem". Turns out that he would not be able to hold the course on Saturday and Sunday as there is a kite surf competition and a lot of people would be expected. So not only would everyone be busy, but there would be no room on the beach for beginners (the beach is 750 km and stretches to Natal, but that is another subject!). But of course for us this is not a problem, the course would be split into three days (today was Wednesday), and then continued on Monday for the last two days. Overall the course consisted of 10 hours over 5 days.
Once this intro was over, we headed to the beach, after finding a spot in the shade we commenced with the theory. Kite surfing theory is fairly simple, there are two basic rules. The first, you need room, lots and lots of room. Something which a quick look at the beach did not confirm, as there seemed to be kite surfers pretty much on top of each other everywhere. The reason for the room, is that the kite is 30 meters away from you, so you need to take this into consideration before doing anything in close quarters.
Second, there are three types of wind, on-shore, off-shore, and side-shore. Two of which are ideal for kiting, off-shore, and side-shore. The other, on-shore wind should be avoided at all costs. A quick explanation might be in order. On-shore wind, blows from land to water, off-shore from water to land, and side-shore parallel to land. So if you go kiting with an on-shore wind, you won't be coming back. Simple.
The remaining theory consisted of a couple of cards showing the positions in which the kite pulls the most, namely low to the horizon downwind (obviously, or maybe not). The neutral position of the kite being 12 o'clock (straight above you). The cards show how the kite is an arch and that moving the arch from 9 o'clock to 3 o'clock vertically is where there is the least resistance, and when lowering it horizontally there is more resistance (ie. pulls the most, also known as the "Power Zone").
Ok, after this, it was time to have a look at the kite.
The first piece of equipment is the "bar". This is how the kite is controlled and consists of a bar to which the kite is attached with 4 lines and you to the bar with one line. The bar also has the control lines rolled up on to it, so were shown how to unroll it and make sure that the lines where untangled. The bar is also divided into two parts the right and the left. Which are color coded. The color is irrelevant, but important is that the right bar will always have a dark color, and the left bar a light color. This is to make sure that in case the bar twists that you know which side controls the correct side of the kite.
The ends of the lines are also color coded to match the bar, left a lighter color, right a darker color.
Once the lines where laid out it was time to unroll and pump up the kite. The particular kite we used was 7sq meters and has inflatable ribs as well as an inflatable leading edge. In essense the front edge of the kite is a tube as well as 4 ribs to which the kite material is fastened. This all gets pumped up until it is nice and ridgid.
Alex then showed us how to turn the kite and how to secure it on the ground to insure that it doesn't fly away. Something very important as 5 minutes previously, we watched an unsecured and unfastened (to the bar) kite take off and roll/fly down the beach with people chasing it. So I guess not everyone paid close enough attention to this part of the course.
To carry it around invert it, and hold it by the leading edge. To secure it on the ground lay it down in the flying poistion and throw some sand on the kite between the ribs to keep the material from catching any wind. So far so good.
Now we were ready to connect the kite to the bar via the control lines we laid out previously. The four control lines (two right; dark, two left; light) are connected via a knot and loop system to the kite. Alex kept explaining that this is where the most of the accidents. Apparently it happens that people connect it incorrectly, and when they first try to fly the kite goes out of control taking the person with it. Assuming you remember to connect the dark to dark, and light to light, and with the addition that the lines are set up so that of the two right lines one has a knot and one has a loop, to match the line on the kite it is nearly impossible to go wrong. Nevertheless, once everything is connected, it is important to do a double check and make sure that everything is ok.
After the kite and bar were connected and everything was checked, it was time to go to the rest of the equipment.
This consisted of, a helmet, a bouyancy vest, and a harness to connect you with the kite. The equipment was neither in a very good state of repair nor did it fit very well. But it was functional.
In between various explanations Alex would continually be interrupted by other students or teachers to take care of some detail or other, something which is annoying to say the least but we managed.
The next thing is getting the kite airborne. A simple procedure as long as you follow one simple rule, don't try to get it airborne downwind, rather side-wind. What I mean by this is you need to stand parallel to the wind with the kite in front of you, so it goes up from the three or nine o'clock position, that is it. If you try to get it airborne downwind it will more than likely drag you and the kite into a building or worse.
Once the kite was airborne, Alex showed us the controls in action, including the "power move" which is when you pull the bar towards you, which in effect gives you a quick shot of lift, as it makes the kite more wind resistant, and of course, stressed that we were not to do that! Kind of takes the fun out of it. The controls are simple, pull left, kite goes left, pull right the kite goes right. With the additional notation that on sand/land we were only to use one hand to control the kite. Why is that you might be asking. The reason is that on land you have to carry your board with you, so you only have one hand to control the kite. Obvious, if there was a board nearby, which at this point there wasn't.
He also then explained the various safety features, of which there are three. The first is to push the bar forward, this loosens the pull on the kite and it goes slack. The second is a quick release button on the harness connection line which will detach the kite from your harness. The last one is a leash which is also connected to the harness connection line, this he explains is a safety feature not for your safety but for that of others, so that the kite doesn't go flying solo down the beach and hurt someone.
Additional the kite has an two adjustments for more or less power, a red ball and a black ball tied to a central line which controls the shape of the kite. Basically the flatter the kite is the less wind resistance it has, the more curvy the more it catches the wind and hence pulls more. The safety features basically remove any tension on the lines and thereby leaving the kite slack and it would just drop with minimal pull.
I must admit that I was a bit nervous the first time he tied the kite to my harness, but once the controls were in my hand it was a piece of cake. The kite reacts pretty slowly, so you have to make adjustments before they are necessary, and although there was a bit of a pull, keeping the kite level at any particular position was not all that difficult. The main difficulty was the wind, occasionally gusty, which would make it necessary to make more corrections than normally. Anyone who has flown a steerable kite will know what I mean. Also unlike a steerable kite, (mine is around a meter), this is much slower and predictable. The steerable kites are extremely fast and can be pretty quirky.
Once I got used to the kite, the controls, and the pull, I got to do exercises, consisting of moving the kite back and forth across the sky. Quite interestingly, it was more difficult controlling the kite when on the left (inland) side than when it was on the seaward side. I assume it was the angle of the wind. Katheryna also noticed this when it was her turn.
The day ended by doing body drags the first one accompanied then after that alone. Basically you walk into the water with the kite and once you are deep enough let the kite drag you out 40 meters or so and then turn the kite around and let it drag you back to the beach. The only problem here is making sure that you stand up before the water gets too shallow, otherwise you get dragged onto land, which can be painful. One thing I can say about this, is that it is much more fun doing the exercise alone. The not so fun part is having to walk up the beach again to do the exercise again as you are walking up against the wind and an ill fitting harness makes it pretty uncomfortable.
This was the first day, and I must say it was fun, and so far not too difficult, although I have a feeling it will be soon...
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