Kiteboarding in the Marshall Islands - The Sequel

A screenshot from an awesome video that Colton of SV Sweet Dreams took (a link to the video is later on in the blog).

After our kiting experience two years ago in the Marshall Islands we were excited to return, now that we have a bit more experience.  We spent over two months in the outer atolls, with most of the time again at Ailuk.  The winds were amazingly consistent: rarely did they drop below 15 kts and they stayed in the 20 to 25 kt range for days.

There were three big changes this year: 1.  Elizabeth and I are much more comfortable on our boards and therefore we had a lot less dramas and did not to rescue each other as often 2.  The big kids started kiting and 3.  After lots of study of the satellite imagery we picked one spot that looked good for teaching the kids and spent much of our time there.

The view from the kite

 A link to Colton's video

Liz having fun.

Not a long commute from Fluenta

and Fluenta makes a good background.

Lots of traffic from the local sailing canoes.

Sailing canoe heading past as Victoria gets ready to go.

Our kite spot was great for learning as at most tides we had a huge playpen where the kids could still touch bottom.  Here I am helping/supervising Johnathan getting going.

And Johnathan is up and going ... briefly ...

and now walking on water ...

of course it was not long before they were up and cruising along

Victoria edging to stay upwind.

Johnathan aiming for the cameraman !

and still a few crashes.

Benjamin gets to play too.

Of course, the more toys you have, the more repairs you need to do.  Of our four kites, two were bought second-hand from schools and a third was a very used one that was given to us.  Funnily enough then, we spent a lot of time repairing kites.  The biggest repair was on Liz's kite when it burst - damaging the brand new bladder (!) - near a seam.  We e-mailed a shop in the US and they said we should send it in for a professional repair

Part the way through the repair onboard.

 In the end our fix held up for lots of kiting

And still time for the "grown-ups" to get out and play too.

The view from the board.  We took lots of video either with the chest mount or from the kite mount but we have not had a chance to do much with it yet.

Dumb dad tricks.

Benjamin had fun too with his board in the waves.  He is swimming now but we are more comfortable with him in his lifejacket in the surf.

Our kite school spot: the blue icon is where we anchored in about 60-70' of water and we kited from the sandspit at the red arrow.  The coordinates for the anchor spot are shown.

Three of our four kite resting after a long day on the water.