I'm with the instructor with the 2 meter training kite and luckily this time my kite didn't crash in the water and luckily I didn't take any face plants. I graduated quickly to the next level, which is called body dragging. I only have shots of this on my video camera that for some reason isn't allowing me to connect to right now... boo. Here's a picture of the guys pumping my 5 meter kite:
Body dragging is where you use a bigger kite powerful enough to actually drag a person.. or two in my case. I went out with my instructor, Warren, who connected himself to the kite and I connected myself to him. There's a handle on the back of the harnesses we use so I basically got dragged along for a while until it was my turn.
To give you a better idea what this dragging is like... imagine yourself water skiing behind a boat. You're hanging on to the rope with a handle that pulls you while you ski. Now, imagine you lost your skis.. and you're still hanging on to the rope... getting dragged. water going into every crevice possible... you can't see... water in the eyes, nose, mouth.. very salty water at that... so in between dry heaving from all the salt you just swallowed and trying to wipe your eyes so you can actually see.. you have to control a kite in the air so it doesn't crash or drag you into the coral reef or something.
Oh yea, and you also have to hold your pants on. luckily I had strong ties on my board shorts otherwise I surely would have come up commando and while that may have been amusing for everyone else, I wasn't looking forward to flashing the people I was staying with for a week.
Quick little side note - here's a picture of me standing in the doorway of my bure, prounounced like puree. They "upgraded" me to the only private hut with an outdoor, but connected bathroom. It's pitch dark at night and i can see and hear the waves crashing outside my porch. so freaking awesome.Okay, back to kiting. After a 2 1/2 hr session in the morning, we came back for lunch, did some "extreme hammocking" (pictures to come later) and then went back out for a sunset session in the late afternoon.
Here's a picture of Nat, one of the Australian gals launching her kite: Okay, now we're officially heading out for our first morning session where I might actually body drag by myself for the first time!!! a wee bit scary since I basically drag myself out in the middle of nowhere about a mile from the beach. That's a long swim and also far enough away that if I was screaming no one could hear me. lol.
Wish me luck!
