I am a Good example of a Bad example!
Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 8:45 pm
Today brought another day of with with the added bonus of sun at Alameda. I was sitting on a log at my favorite spot this afternoon with a couple other guys and things weren't looking good. Charlie rubbed my face in his Northwest system theory once again via cell phone and sure enough he was right. Zeev was heading to Crissy where I'm sure he scored a most excellent session before his meeting as the numbers were good. See, when a nor-wester comes through, some wind will usually make it in to Crissy and some farther in the bay. But not far enough.
So we quickly packed up and hightailed it over to Alameda and sure enough, it was looking good. Excellent, powered up 14m wind. I picked the Outrage 14, although before long I could have gone out on the Rage II 12. But I was sore from the day before, probanly more from work than kiting although I'm sure that added to it as well. With the 14m up in the air, things were good and fun for close to 2 hours or so. We had another low tide, which can be fun to hit with some hard turns and butter water.
After having hit this time and time again for so long, throwing tricks and airs, I figured, no problem! I was coming in hot and powered up in the butter in a foot of water or less and sent the kite to score some major air and land with the softest kiss on the water as usual, when I goofed on my timing and the board was ripped off my feet upon takeoff! I sailed high and far and knew I was in trouble. All I could think was, "soft landing, soft landing!". It was soft, but not soft enough. I should have considered coming down on my butt, my went for the feet instead. The left one was find, but the right took a bit of a hit, and the pain was immediate and sharp. First thing I did was lift my right leg up, hell, I didn't know what might have happened. Luckily, nothing flapping limply and nothing broken through the skin! I got so lucky as it turned out to only be a sprain of sorts that hurts, sho' nuff, so I'm limped in across 100 yards of low tide sand and landed the kite.
Lesson learned? Yes!! It's just not smart to risk it like that in such shallow water. You might think you're nailing all your tricks, but all it takes is one that you don't! I got lucky, it could have been much worse. So know that I'm a good example of a bad example and don't put yourself at risk like that. Tomorrow it could be better or worse, we'll see.
Ollie
So we quickly packed up and hightailed it over to Alameda and sure enough, it was looking good. Excellent, powered up 14m wind. I picked the Outrage 14, although before long I could have gone out on the Rage II 12. But I was sore from the day before, probanly more from work than kiting although I'm sure that added to it as well. With the 14m up in the air, things were good and fun for close to 2 hours or so. We had another low tide, which can be fun to hit with some hard turns and butter water.
After having hit this time and time again for so long, throwing tricks and airs, I figured, no problem! I was coming in hot and powered up in the butter in a foot of water or less and sent the kite to score some major air and land with the softest kiss on the water as usual, when I goofed on my timing and the board was ripped off my feet upon takeoff! I sailed high and far and knew I was in trouble. All I could think was, "soft landing, soft landing!". It was soft, but not soft enough. I should have considered coming down on my butt, my went for the feet instead. The left one was find, but the right took a bit of a hit, and the pain was immediate and sharp. First thing I did was lift my right leg up, hell, I didn't know what might have happened. Luckily, nothing flapping limply and nothing broken through the skin! I got so lucky as it turned out to only be a sprain of sorts that hurts, sho' nuff, so I'm limped in across 100 yards of low tide sand and landed the kite.
Lesson learned? Yes!! It's just not smart to risk it like that in such shallow water. You might think you're nailing all your tricks, but all it takes is one that you don't! I got lucky, it could have been much worse. So know that I'm a good example of a bad example and don't put yourself at risk like that. Tomorrow it could be better or worse, we'll see.
Ollie