It keeps our teeth in our heads and puts the common back in sense. But sometimes it comes at us real fast, and that's uncomfortable. That's what happened not long ago during a kiteboarding competition at Lakes Bay in West Atlantic City. It was a jump - no, sorry, I mean A JUMP!!!!! - by 23-year-old Kristy Moller of Maui.
Even in a crowd of adrenaline mainliners, it made people gasp. Moller had just launched what would have been a very nice, routine jump when a powerful gust seized her kite. Instead of gliding back down from, say, 15 feet, she rose. And rose. And rose some more. Conservative estimates are that she was 35 feet above Lakes Bay when the gust let her go. Still hanging onto the control bar and thus the kite, she hit the water hard, but not hard enough to get hurt. When it was clear she was OK, spectator breathing resumed.
Moller's adventure illustrates a lot about the new sport of kiteboarding. It showed the sport's extreme side, the side that scares some people and attracts others. But it also showed that kiteboarding is a sport that's so new, so unexplored, that it hasn't quite found its footing or answered all the questions. Is it really so extreme? Yes. Sometimes. But not necessarily. It doesn't have to be. Jumping isn't required. Cruising across the water attached to a nicely powered kite is fine. Does everybody who rides horses try to jump fences? Do they then graduate to riding bulls? (Disclaimer: I rode a bull once ... but only for a very short time).
I've been learning to kiteboard and I still don't know all the answers. But I think I have a few.
This is not unbiased. I love the power a kite puts in my hands. I like the people I do it with, even though they're all better. In new sports everybody helps each other, and that is a very pleasant thing. Everybody gets worked trying to learn, everybody is hitting plateaus and breaking through and asking advice and giving it when asked and everybody comes off the water with a smile, even if it's only because they're glad to still be alive. It's a cool time to learn kiting. Around here it's the beginning.
Things I've learned about kiteboarding:
- It's easier than windsurfing but the penalties for mistakes are potentially more severe. Let's say you try to sail a windsurfer when it's too windy. You go a few feet and fall in. Or let's say you rig a windsurfer incorrectly. Again, no big deal. But if it's too windy for the kite you've got up, or if you hook it up wrong, or if you make a mistake in kite handling, you could wind up getting dragged down the beach on your belly or taken up 10 feet and slammed into the ground. A powered-up kite is an irresistible force.
- Take lessons. You'll save time, skin and aggravation.
- Kiting can be dangerous, but not usually in a real life-threatening way. The worst of my injuries have been to my pride.
- It gets safer every year with each evolution in equipment and teaching techniques. "It used to be the extreme 18-to-35-year-old adrenaline junkie," said Dan Johnson, a former Lakes Bay rider who now lives in Maui and is director of national sales and marketing for Sky Hi Distribution, which sells Air Rush kites. "Now people are getting into it at lower levels. You don't have to jump. Older people are getting into it and saying, 'I can do that.' So I think the sport is getting broader and safer."
- Kiting is fun on any kind of water, as long as you have room to launch and are away from obstructions, power lines, crowds, etc. Lakes, rivers, bays, oceans, inlets, it doesn't matter. No waves are required. In fact, some people think flat water is a lot more fun. It's a wakeboarding mentality: the glassier the better.
- It can work in wind as light as say 6-8 knots, though you'll quickly want more. What this means is that there are a lot of good kite days a week.
- Kiteboarding is safer and more fun when there are experienced people there to launch your kite, catch it when you're finished and answer those panicked questions. There's a whole subculture at Lakes Bay, every one helpful and cool, and another buzzing nest in Ocean City, an entertaining bunch you can often catch at the 41st Street beach when the wind is south or northeast.
- Kiting is for a lot more people than you'd think. Snowboarders, wakeboarders, surfers, windsurfers, hang gliders, ultralight pilots, skaters, water and snow skiers - all are potential kiters, though all you really need is to be reasonably fit and comfortable in the water.
- Along with Cape Hatteras and Florida, we've got a great area for the sport. There's a lot of eligible water.
- The expense is relative. Here's a sport that you can get started at for $1500 or much less, if you buy used stuff. If that sounds like a lot, add up the cost of skis along with lift tickets, food, lodging and gas. How much use do you really get from your skis or snowboard? Divide your days of use by the cost of equipment, and now you see with kiting you get your money's worth.
- Around here it's easily an eight-month sport, with a good wetsuit and booties. And when you go to your warm weather vacation spot, your kites pack up to the size of sleeping bags. The boards are usually the size of a surfboard or a wakeboard, so they pack easily.
Kiting has scared me. It still does at times. Just holding on to a powered-up kite on the beach will get your heart moving. There is no faking it. All I hope is that I can learn to use that fear - control it and channel it and squeeze it so hard that it changes into excitement. And it's happening already. My windsurfing gear isn't getting much use, but my imagination sure is.
For more information:
- Extreme Windsurfing, Lakes Bay, 609-641-4445.
- Island Surf & Sail, Long Beach Island, 609-494-5553.
