Kite-Boarding
by May and Bill
Kiteboarding adventures, here
(near our home in Stuart, Florida) and all-about.
From Saturday, 29 September,
2007 - at the US Sailing Center of Martin County (USSCMC) - Jensen
Beach - near our home (when the wind is north of east this is a
better place to sail...
Ms. May when boardsailing today - she was working on her gybes, (and
got a few blisters) Mr. Bill was working on having fun and getting
muscles back 'into shape' - after not having been kiteboarding for a
while - anyway - EXCELLENT Day for both of us... The above
image is the kiteboarding track-log - when you click on this image you
will get a VERY LARGE (14 inches wide / 1 megabyte) file...
From Monday, 27 August, 2007
- at
the 'West Island' in Stuart, Florida, USA
We drove-out to West Island this afternoon about 2:30 local time.
We'd seen some very good wind late (after 6 p.m.) last Friday
afternoon, so we were watching the weather web-sites, the anemometer at
home and other such things - the wind 'looked' like it might work... -
there was 'mild' wind (10-12 knots) when we arrived but Mr. Bill rigged
a 16 meter kite, anyway and Ms. May launched him about 3:20 p.m. - the
wind picked-up to about 14-16 knots at about 4 p.m. so there was
'acceptable' boarding for about an hour...
Ms. May took some video with her trusty 4 year old Sony DSC 75
(basically a 'still' camera) - Mr. Bill's edited these videos into a 70
second "iMovie" here (3 versions - pick the appropriate one:
"Tiny"
- about 1.1 megabytes (...mov) (only about 150
pixels on a side) - for
slow-download-link(s) - computers (Mac or PC)
"Medium" - about 6.9
megabytes (...mov) (about
320 x 240
pixels) - Macintosh OR Windows PC
"Larger" - about 8.2
megabytes (...mp4) (about
400 x 500 pixels) -
higherest-quality - PC only
most probably - you MAY have to save the file to disk first, and then
open it
from within Microsoft's "Movie Player" or another ...mp4
playing-viewing application.
From Monday, 20 August, 2007
this is a frame cut from a video (from Sunday, 19th) - it's resolution
is not so hot, but it's still a good image
this is a 'real' digital image (also from Sunday, 19th) - Ms. May took
this, with the six year old Sony DSC-S75 camera we have that still
takes great still-pictures but it is not waterproof and it doesn't take
great video.. - it's originally about 24"x 20" - at 72 dpi - and
there's a LOT of background that I've cropped-out to get to this
version - if you want the larger-one - let me
know... - However, - you can hardly tell it's
me in the larger-version.
Today is Sunday, 19th August - and I went kiteboarding today - first
time in about 4 months - UGH UGH - there's been NO WIND - but today
things happened (thanks to Hurricane Dean who is giving Jamaica a 'fit'
today).
NOTE: - the videos captioned in the
following paragraph are temporarily un-available
- they should be back by the
end of August - if I get time to re-build them in iMovie:
ONE SMALL video ((version 1) 450 K bytes
) and the same movie - but saved in a bigger / higher-quality version (
4 megabytes ((version 2) a little
brighter, too) OR if you're REALLY into Movie-clips (WITH MUSIC) click here for 3.8 megabytes
- give me a chance - I'll get more video stuff up here,
soon...
- but - it'll still be October-November before we get
'consistently - doable' kiteboarding wind...
If / when we get really 'into' the video-thing we'll probably get
http://www.viosport.com camera
and then we can use it for water-sports
as well as hang-gliding and then you'll see a LOT MORE videos on our
web-site...
- Seriously considering this gadget, but it won't be
available until about October, 2007...
- However, we're
already starting to get familiar with iMovie and it is a very useable
application - even the older-version, which I'm using, now, since the
newer & better version only runs on Intel-based Macintoshes and I
don't have one of those yet (but maybe next year?)
Well - HEREEREREREERRER it is -
the 'long-awaited-update' - (Friday,
25 May, 2007) UpDate!!!
An 'embarassing personal note':
TODAY was the FIRST DAY I'd been kiteboarding
in about 2 months - since my 'accident' (banged-up-ribs (as a result of
a STUPID JUDGEMENT CALL) in mid-March - when (for the first time in 5-6
years of kiteboarding) I mucked-up a 'landing' and impacted the ground
at un-necessarily high-speed!) - ANYWAY....
Today was GOOD WIND (16-22 knots) about East at the US Sailing Center
(where you can see ' real time wind
' courtesy of our web-site...
It was FUN to be on a TINY kite (7 meter - old-style) - and
my (large, home-made) asymmetrical board... My time on the
water was brief (rain-squall came through). I'd been
watching the rain, so I was VERY near shore, and then I saw this
'gust-front' and promptly killed-the kite and walked back to
shore. After the gust-front, of course, there was NO WIND for
about 30 minutes (just time for me to clean-up) and then there was More
Wind - but then more squall lines and more gust-fronts - so I got the
'best' of it and it were 'good while it lasted'... - unfortunately, no
pictures, no track-logs - though there is a BIG Laser Regatta at the Sailing Center this weekend...
(Memorial Day Weekend)...
On the way, driving home, I went by "West Island" where there were a
bunch of board sailors (bored sailors) standing around under the bridge
(out of the rain) commenting on the wind and rain, and so-forth but on
the 'state' of the great little park that the county government had
made-up for us to go boardsailing from ... - For more on the park
- check-out the boardsailing web-page update.
last updated:
13:37 p.m. on Saturday, 09 October,
2007rga;
revID: 1i (in
Stuart, Florida, USA)
