Cabarete Days 7-11

Been an interesting few days. Firstly my wedding ring went missing - fairly sure I removed it before I went out kitesurfing, so was somewhat annoyed that it had disappeared. After some investigation our maid 'found it on the grass outside the apartment'.. Given that if I had left it on I had been throughly tumbled by some big waves that afternoon, I wasn't totally convinced.

Anyway, it's back now and that's a good thing. Quite odd how you can get so attached a small lump of metal!

As for the big waves mentioned earlier, we've had a couple of mad days with high winds and big swell. Been trying my hand at amateur wave-riding.. was getting quite confident (even on my twintip) until I went into a big wave a bit too slow, which jacked up behind me, the nose of my board dipped and the rest was just a long protracted gurgling noise as I got the full washing machine treatment.

I emerged to find my kite lying in the path of the shore break. Given that I'd seen quite a few kites coming back up the beach with holes punched clean through them, I ditched it onto the 5th line to hopefully take some tension out of the canopy. Kite got twisted up and spat out on the beach but was unharmed, proving that it is tree and wave proof!

Conditions clamed down a little yesterday, enabling Clare to get out for another session. She's progressing really quickly, getting up on the board pretty much every time. It can't be long until she's fully cracked it, and she's hoping to notch up her IKO3 before leaving (which includes going upwind and jumping!).

I had a quick play on the Waroo.. Not as alien-feeling as I thought it would be. I can see why Clare has taken to them as they turn much like a foil kite, pivoting around the centre rather than the tips on a C-kite. Not a bad kite really, plenty of power for the size but the bar pressure felt vague with the bar any further out than the last third, and it was difficult to gauge how much power you had dialled in from the bar. The Primadonna whilst not having quite the same amount of depower (although, not far off) feels more progressive to me.

That said, the female half of the Primadonna1 flying couple here said she actually disliked the bar pressure on the new kite, which just goes to prove that not everyone is suited to the same thing.

It's the last few days before returning to the cold reality of home. Clare's hoping to become a kitesurfing goddess and I'm hoping to acquire big enough balls to test out the kitelooping performance of the Primadonna2. What could possibly go wrong?...