Belize 2010_16

We all decided that we were going to down wind to J&G's place south of town. As we were getting ready the wind seemed to be enough to down wind as soon as we got Matt up and out it pretty much died. He took a couple of tacks and said it was possible. I launched dad and his kite would barely go up. Matt yelled from the water that there was more wind up high, dad took his kite up slowly and started to walk out. A sudden puff of wind took his kite up and over his head toward the condo building. He had no where to go except forward into the concrete wall of the swimming pool. I yelled "pull your safety!" as I was running towards him. He pulled it before I got to him but it didn't seem like it was engaging so I grabbed the front line to depower the kite and the bar zoomed out on the line and the safety was engaged. The kite landed on top of the south condo building and I held dads leash while he ran up there and undid the lines. Thankfully no harm done and as soon as dad was down he pumped up his kite and was ready to go out again. Madre' launched him from the water this time and Karlene launched me then madre' launched Karlene.

I couldn't believe we were all trying to do this because we had less wind than when Matt and I went into town the other day. Matt was already far away, dad was half way between me and Matt when I got going. This was truly a down winder. I caught up to dad quick and putted around him. There was a barge coming up from town and dads kite was in the water drifting towards the barge. I thought that the barge would get past before there were any issues but the way dads luck was going today I was wrong. Dad had almost cleared the barge when another puff of wind pulled him so his kite was rubbing down the last 1/3 of the barge. There was a guy on the barge walking towards the kite just as one of the kite lines got caught on a stumpy post type thing at the end of the barge. The guy grabbed it off and held it for a second because he could see that the tug boat thing pushing the barge was still in the way of the kite if he let go immediately. When he did let go it cleared the boat fine and dad waved thanks. I just started laughing to myself and I wished I had some sort of camera.

I saw Matt a few tacks down wind standing on the beach. I thought he was either waiting for us or calling it quits. I got as close to him as possible and had to start body dragging because it was the only thing I could do to get up wind to him. We decided to call it quits and call dad in. We all wrapped up our lines and headed in. I caught Matts kite when I had all my stuff situated and was holding on to it while walking my kite in as well. He told me I could let go now so I did and it drifted down wind and exploded! There was a stick in the water but I swear it didn't touch it. Matt said that he saw it fold on the wing tip where he reinforced it before we left but it was just that kites time. Thankfully we brought down a back up kite just for this occasion.

We all walked with out gear to the Palapa Bar where we stowed our gear while dad walked back home and got the boat. The girls came down on bikes to see us and told us that Karlene could barely launch and when she did the kite fell out of the sky, so she packed it up. The girls rode back and dad drove us back. We cleaned up and rode our bikes into town for some Chinese lunch and ice cream. It was about 3:30pm and we went home to try and get a sunset session but that was not happening. Matt and I have been keeping our eyes out for a new flag pole at the end of the dock for madre' because Matt clipped it with his kite one day. We came across a long piece of pvc pipe lying in the rode that we had seen on our way into town and picked it up.

We had a new project when we got home and as we were working on it J&G came riding up the dock. We had a beer with them and watched the sunset.