Another annual 30mi kitesurf ride on Galveston island was a success.  If you missed this one don’t worry we’ll have another one this year, we usually get two in a year.

We met at East Beach in Galveston to park everyone’s cars and transfer all kiteboarding equipment to the black van and drive to St Luis Pass.  We got to the pass around 9am and unpacked.  We were pumped up and ready to  ride by 930am.  These are the kites everyone had: 17m Slingshot Turbine, 17m Blade Fat Lady, 14m Slingshot Rally, 14m Cabrinha Contra, 12m Cabrinha Switchblade.  Boards were mostly Slingshot surf boards between 5’4″ and 5’11″.  The winds were light but it was plenty for the reach we had down the beach.  The surfing wasn’t too good because the winds were lighter…anytime you got on a wave you had to watch to make sure your kite stayed in the air.  The first group finished the ride in 2.5 hours and the second group in about 3.5 hours.  After we were done we drove to the Levee to get some more riding in as the winds were much better there for sure.

The entire trip down the beach, we were all just listening to our music, jumping, and carving on the wave faces…riding like this in the surf is one of my favorite experiences.  You don’t need to worry about heading back to where you started you can just concentrate on the ride in front of you.  When you ride with a buddy like this you also can take turns riding in front and exploring the beach line and the different parts of the Galveston area.

Everyone made it to the end of the ride just fine but we did have one brave soul who had a catestrophic pulley failure on his Cabrinha 12m about 2mi into the ride.  This was a no-fix situation so he had to pack it up.  Things like this happen some time kiteboarding so its important to be ready for unforseen problems.  You can be the best rider around and if a pulley on your kite breaks you’re sill screwed just like everyone else.  Things to practice if you’re looking to join the ride next time we do it:

1. Get in the surf and practice your skills riding in the waves
2. Practice getting your board back in deep water
3. Practice self rescue in deep water (when preforming a deep water self rescue make sure you wrap you your lines on the bar while swimming to your kite to prevent wrap up)
4.  Make sure you know how to self launch and self land incase you need it somewhere on the open beach

If you’re unsure about the above items or just want some additional help with your progression give the shop a call at 281-508-6485 and get some refresher lessons.  A cheaper way to do it is to sign up for your IKO level 3 certification ($40), when Phil takes you out for the practical test he will make sure you konw how to do the above items and can demonstrate…he can also give you some pointers.  Houston@xlkites.com

Thanks for everyone who came out for the ride it was fun!!

Here are some pics from the ride:

Met at the shop at 7am to drop a car on the dike and ride from the seagate back down on twintips. Only had 3 guys show up Phil, Chris, and Garrett. I guess it was a bit early for everyone else. Even Gator bailed on us. If you guys are interested in joining us for these rides keep an eye on our twitter feed as we usually post an invite the night before the ride. You can sign up here: http://twitter.com/#!/midlerp

Ride was great! We have been developing a new NW riding area off the northern Levee for use in the winter when the winds have more west direction in them. Be on the lookout for the new spot stats, location etc when we finish checking everything out over there.

Here are some pics from the trip:

We hooked up with Fernando, Kent, Chris Clay, Chris Summers, and Me (Phil Midler) to do a bit of riding on the inside of Dollar bay. This was Friday 28Oct11 with winds about 20-25mph from the North. We were on 2012 Slingshot Rally 10m kites with a Lunacy 132cm and Ignition 140cm boards. We lauched off the Levee just to the South of the sea gate and down wind of the powerlines into a small buyou. Once in there we made our way down wind to the Dollar Flats riding area about .5mi down wind from the starting point. Chris Summers and Kent were screwing around so the rest of us left to meet them down at the riding area. Unfortunately after a few passes in the muck we determined that it was way to shallow for riding that day. Too Bad because the north wind was perfect! So we made our way back up wind to the Levee. Because of the power lines on the southern side of the sea-gate we crossed over to the north side and just walked over the Levee to the Galveston Bay on the other side. Walking up hill and up wind sucks for sure. Once on the other side we rode up wind some more to the Levee Lagoon riding area to see if it was any deeper. No luck there either so we just headed down wind and decided to do a down-wind ride to the Levee from there…maybe 3-4miles. It was a great time even though both of those site were too shallow to ride. It was cool to hang out with the new crew. Thanks for coming guys!

Phil and Chris are at it again.  We left around 230pm on Tuesday from just past the second boat ramp on the dike in Texas City.  We wanted to leave earlier but we got the huge wetsuit/vest/neoprene order in and had to get everything recieved and labled (good news if you need cold water gear)!  We were on 8m 2012 Rallys with 2012 Slingshot Celeritas 5’11″ board and 2012 Tyrant 5’11″ board.  The wind was up but it was gusty so the 8m kites we’re too bad…We almost took the 6ms, which would have been fine too.  We crossed the channel and rode in some of the new lakes on the north side of Bolivar penisula.  There is a really good flat water spot which is where we turned around with lots of channels and cool little places to ride.  It is just like the dollar flats area.  Great time for sure.  If you look at the map you’ll see a small island north of our route on the east side of the bay, we passed right by it.  We’ll have to save that adventure for another day. 

Distance: 12-15mi
Gear: 8m Rallys and 2012 slingshot surfboards
Time: 1.5 hours
Riders: Phil Midler and Chris Summers

So once again we were busy at the shop all day and finally got loose around 5pm to head to drop my car at the northern part of the bay up by Morgan’s point.  The wind was very strong due to Tropical Storm Lee…not even a real hurricane, and was blowing from the north.  You can see from the wind report from that day that the wind was gusting up to near 50mph which is pretty spicy on an 8m…especially for 20+mi in the open bay.  Once we launched the winds were very gusty because they were blowing us directly off shore.  As we made out way out into the open bay the winds got cleaner and the swell grew until it was 3-5ft and great for surfing as we made our way south.  At a few points were were over powered even going straight downwind at close to 30mph…crazy!  There was a little bit of rain during our journey but for the most part we made it dry until the very end when the sun was setting and the rain started falling.  We arrived back  at the Levee at around 7:50pm…just in time as it was raining pretty hard.  The route we followed was along the channel islands past the tankers and Atkinson’s islands to Red Fish island and around Eagle point back to the Levee.  Great trip for sure!