Author: Bryan Elkus

Well it was a long week with out wind. We did however score some great surf and standup sessions. But everyone was very antsy to get back out and kite. Yesterday we did a little shooting for a shorty video on the REV. After that I did a downwinder on the south side. Today we finished up the shooting at Kite Point with some flat water. Tim dave and I were on split and rode at KP for a couple hours today. And tomorrow is looking even better. Saturday is the 6th REAL anniversary so everyone is getting excited for a fun and huge party.

Here is a shot from today’s session where the loop pulled the Kite out of my hands mid back roll.

This weekend I headed home for my Uncles wedding. It was great to see everyone. I picked up my new truck and got to drive it back on my birthday. I made it back to NC in 13+ hours only making 2 stops. Some how I woke up on the early side the next day though it was not suppose to be windy. I went out to clean out my truck and it was windy. I headed to Kite Point to ride. I rode all day there. I got to ride my new Mission 144 and love it. Some of the Waves crew headed down to KP to Join. So I got to ride and hang out with Mitch, Enily, Sylvain and Skinny for the day. I also got to test out the Slingshot Rev. I really enjoyed the kite, I was a under powered but the kite turned fast and had some power in the turns unlike the T2. The unhooking was terrific very much like the Fuel. The 4 line 5th line like release system works well. All in all I think the Rev should be a popular kite in the near future.

Well its official i made it into Kiteboarding Magazine. Its not my picture, and its not be riding, but there is a hole page picture of me in the Aug-September issue of Kiteboarding Magazine. Not only is it a picture of me its a full page image. The picture was taken by John Bilderback during the 2007 Triple-S. The page on the right is Sam Bell charging on the Camel Toe Slider. Im not quite sure why they chose that picture because hes barley on the rail in this picture. He had a ton of much better rides, but im not the editor. The picture on the left, the burry figure at the point of The Slick taking pictures is me. So there i made it in one way or another…

The weekends here just seem to be the best. This weekend brought us NE winds at 25-30 knots and chest to headhigh surf. Needless to say I wasn’t on the couch watching tv much. Saturday started early with a session at the Lighthouse. Tommie and I were the only ones there for a few hours. We rode 9ms and surfboards. Zack, Nick and Greg showed up later to join in. They weren’t the only ones who wanted to ride the waves. Over the last 2-3 hours 30-40 surfers showed up and it started to be a game of dodge the bouyes. We rode there until around 1:30. Then we drove down to the cove to try and find some other good breaks (it was high tide). We then headed to Kite Point for a little flat water session. We spent 2 hours playing in the KP pool. We had enough flat-water and hoped that the waves were back up. They were, we rode at the Lighthouse until dark. It was then home to eat a quick dinner and sleep.

Sunday was much the same. Tommie, Zack and I rode the Lighthouse from 9:30 to 2:00. I was able to get Samm to shoot a little in the morning. Then it was naptime for a couple hours and then back to the Lighthouse for the last NE session of the weekend. To Tommie and my surprise a bunch of coaches showed up from up north to session. Riding that session was: Tommie, Zack, Sylvain, Mitch, Ryan, Brandon, Trip and Eric. To top off the weekend we had a great rainbow Sunday evening(see the last picture).

Samm and I took a splitty today. There was not suppose to be any good wind today, but it held SW for us. So, we headed to Kite Point for a short session. I rode my 13m in some very inconsistant SSW winds. Samm busted out the camera to grab a couple good shots for the GLK movie, though the lighting was not great and the storms rolling in didn’t help either I still snuck a session in.

Last night after work a bunch of us headed to The Cove for a Kite session. Zack, Tommie, Dave, JD and a couple other showed up. The waves were small but fun about waist high. The wind was light, I was just able to get upwind on my 13m and a surf board. I really finally understand why going unhooked in the surf is soooooo much better than being hooked in. You have so much more freedom when you are unhooked and can move with the wave instead of against it. Though it is much harder to control the power of the kite. When you go to hit the lip you have no power in the kite and then going for a bottom turn the kite trys to rip you off the board. Controlling the kite is key.

I also had a scary mishap in the surf. I thought it would be fun to ride through my lines while riding a wave. Well not really but the kite lost tension and then next thing I know I’m bombing down the line threw my kite lines. I’m underwater with the lines tangled around my legs trying to get them off before/incase the kite powers up. Well the kite started to catch wind in the canopy and gave me a big tug, thankfully all my body parts were still there. So lesson learned don’t ride threw your kite lines. After that I had to do some bar juggling once I got the kite back up in the air, but it all worked out. Other than that little mishap it was a pretty fun little wave session.

Tim and I headed up to Duck and Corolla to take pictures of some golf courses and skate parks for work. After that we got back to waves in time for a standup paddling / surfing session before the managers meeting. Evans, Nate, Stuckey, Eric, Tim, Katie and I headed to Sea Haven for a session. It was small but very fun on the SUP board.

Here is the short version:

This past weekend Jimmy Lewis had a few of us at REAL Kiteboarding head up to Dewey beach for a Standup Paddleboard Demo. Nick, Sam Bell, Juda, Zack, Britt and I drove up to Dewey on Friday afternoon. We arrived before sunset. We meet up with Chris from Liquid Board shop. We made it just in time to do a short paddle to a bar called Secrets. We defiantly stole the show. The bar is right on the water so we had a grand entrance to say the least. Everyone was taking pictures and even the owner came down to great us and buy us a few rounds of drinks.

Saturday we woke up early, somehow, around 6:00 and headed to one of the state parks north of Dewey. There was a small wave (perfect for standup) and a couple surfers. We unloaded the truck and headed to the beach for the morning. The surfers just seemed to come out of the woodwork. Everyone had a great time trying out the three different sized boards we brought. We headed in to meet up with Dave and Spunky Loop at their shop. After that we did a couple mile downwinder on the ocean side at dewey. As we past by everyone was watching us. That evening we partied at the Loop’s shop and then headed to the bar for a very fun night.

Sunday we slept in a bit and then headed to the Liquid Board Shop to take a look. Chris hooked us all up with hats and shirts. Their shop is sick. Their having a Grand Opening next week : might be worth the 6 hour drive for the opening party. It is defiantly one of the coolest & nicest shops that ive been in. They did a great job. Then we headed over to meet up with Dave on the beach for a quick session before we headed back to Cape Hatteras.

Samm, Shannon and I headed to the movies up in Nags head but before we did it was off to Kite Point to get some video footage for this year’s GLK video. Well it was defiantly windy. I went out VERY powered and got some boosts on tape. Now I just need to jets some kitesurfing and wake style on film and we should be good to go.