Tom and I headed over to the West side this weekend. We were joined by ryan, sam, Ashley and Britney. Ryan let us crash at his place which is about 5 miles south of Point Sable. We had 2 spectacular days on the water. Friday was NUKING tom went out on his 12m and was VERY litat point sable. the waves were over his head at points it was a great day.

The water was very cold. Both tom and I wore both our full and shorties. The air all three days was around 60-65. I didn’t ride fri.

Saturday was amazing. We got down to the beach around 11-11:30 and the wind just turned on as we got there. Tom and I put up the 18 and 16. This was my first time riding my 16m (thanx brent!) it was a blast she flew great.

Still need to figure out the hole 5th line thing. Tom and I had a good session on the bigger kites. Then the wind really turned on. We came in to pump up the smaller kites (13 and 12m). Then we did a short mile to mile and a half down winder. After we were done we headed to the dunes, which were a blast.

And then partied all night. Sunday was the my day for riding. I was well powered on my 16m tom was lit on his 18. I rode well and really figured out how get up wind. This came about after I lost my board and did a kiteloop 3 times and made it ¾ of the way to were we ended our down winder yesterday. Tom grabed my board I relaunched and then tom and I did our first up winder back part where everyone was camped out on the beach a mile or so up wind. We were pretty much frozen by the time we got all the way back up wind so we called it a day and packed our stuff and headed back home.

more pictures on my flicker!!!

Ryan’s dad took pics of us riding with his sweet Digirebel so check back on my flicker in a few days for more pictures

Kitestock 2006 has come and gone. Tom and myself were planning on heading down to kitestock on Saturday morning. The trip started pretty poorly. We left east lansing with one passport and the hopes of getting a copy of my birth certificate so I might have a slight chance of getting into Canada, or more likely back into the USA (parents were outta town and the passports locked up). Plus on the drive down my favorite hat flew right out the window. Well, turned out that the file it the copy might be in was nowhere to be found. Turned out that we found the key to the safe and got my passport. There was no stopping us now. We woke up at 8ish and headed to Canada. We pulled into mitchells bay a few hours later to find a few kites on the beach. As the day grew more and more people came and the beach was packed with kites. It was SO great to see some girls out there killing it on the water. Us Michiganders don’t get to see that all to often. The wind was not to great most got down winded but made the best of it. Some fun non-wind activities during the day: the marry go round of death, and Smokey hitting the booter (towed in style) at like 30mph (best footage of the year). The Party sat night was a BLAST to say the least at least the part I remember. They were raffling off a bunch of stuff Kyle (DETROITkiteboarding) won a wakeskate and drew (Beer CO.) got a harness. Turns out there was a 16m Best kite on the raffle so I bought some 30-40$ worth of tickets and through them all in for the kite. Turtle and 2 other people offered to donate the kite to me if they were to win as well (so nice I really appreciated that guys). Turns out they did not call my number, but the host and greatest guy EVER Brent Ford had the winning ticket. He said that he would give away the kite. So I did just about everything I could to get that kite. And believe it or not he decided to give it to me. I was so ecstatic the rest of the night was pretty much a blur. I’m sooo grateful for this. And will use it to its fullest. Sunday came around after sleeping in joe’s room on the floor. Had breakfast and headed to Bell River for some kiting. Jesse McCutcheon is one of the Best Kiteboarding national riders. Jesse helped me a lot with the kite and getting use to it and all I need to do to get it up and flying properly (need to buy a bigger bar w/ 5th line). By the way he is a really nice guy. It really nice to see that a pro would take the time to help out a newer rider, like Jesse did for me, with really nothing to gain on his part. It would have been the day to ride the 16m too though I did not have a 5th line bar to go with the kite. But from now on, on days like these which happen often ill be out there shredding with the rest of them. All I can say is this kite will be put to excellent use. From having a 10% chance of even getting into Canada and back to randomly finding the key to get my passport, I guess it was meant to be. Kitestock was everything I thought it would be and I think everyone had an amazing time (though probably not as much fun as I did). THANX Tim & April and EVERYONE else who helped out to make kitestock 2006, kitestock 2006!

PICTURES FROM KITESTOCK 2006

looks like were planning on heading to kitestock this weekend for the festivities. It should be another great weekend. The event is being held at mitchell’s bay in Canada. I think were going to drive over sat morning and were going to pray for some wind this weekend. This is the 5th kitestock and from what I hear it’s a great time and lots of people.

http://www.kitestock.ca/

it was an uneventful weekend. Tom and i drove up to Tawas,MI for the weekend, there was not too much riding. some lite wind riding with the glide and LFT. we did some pull surfing on the beach, played a little volleyball and ate alot. ryan’s friend dislocated his shoulder. but we all had a great time up there hanging out. some pics coming soon.

Sunday at harsens island. it was my first adventure out to harsens. i must say its very nice out there. im also sure that i would have had even more fun if it were not 55 degrees. I got to meet a lot of kiters ive been meaning to run into on sun. i think we all had a blast. it took me an hour and a half to get to harsens. i got there around 10 and was ready to go ride. drew was there before me. it was windy, it was too windy for my kite. brian let me borrow on of his to go out after he rode. brian got hurt when he got slammed early in the day. good to know it was nothing serious! i headed out on a 9 and got in a good 1-1.5 hour session before i came in. there were so many people there, almost too many kites in the water as some points. i chilled out on land for a while getting over 45 min of footage of lots of people mainly kyle and doug were just killing it out there. i tryed to head out later in the evening wen the wind calmed a little on my 13. the 13 proved to be a little too small and came in. It was a terrific day just way too cold. cya all back out on the water soon.

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MOVIE LINK (.mov): CLICK ME!!! Quicktime 7 needed
MOVIE LINK (.mp4): or CLICK ME!!!

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Movie is here

(Right click and save as to download)

MOVIE LINK: CLICK ME!!! Quicktime 7 needed

Day 1
13.5 hour drive arrived around 10. Tom and I went to get out his stitches, while kyle and drew went to kitty hawk kiting to find out where to ride. We meet up with them a few minutes later. There we went kitty hawk kitting. There we found out that we should go ride solvo. We also meet mike there and the kite shop. Mike is a fellow MI rider. Mike is a very nice guy and we all enjoyed his company out on the water. He has a house down in OBX and we randomly bumped into him. There was one kiter there when we got there and the wind was not to strong he was on a 18. The wind slowly picked up. So we unpacked and launched the kites. Tom and I threw up our 13 and 12s while kyle and drew threw up larger kites, and mike threw up his 12 Best hybrid. They did much better than we did. I was just too under powered to really get riding. After I was done body dragging around for a little we meet Brandon. He is also a MI rider from grand rapids. After the session we booked it to the rental place to pick up our keys with exactly 2 minutes to spare before they closed. We picked up the keys to “beach happy” our house for the week. We unpacked a little and ordered pizzas from Toppers. Which was a great call that pizza was terrific. We stopped and grabed some food and drinks at the grocery store before we picked up the pizza. After dinner we chilled out in the hot tub on the second deck of beach happy over looking the ocean side. Then we quickly called it a night after that.

Day 2
Started the morning off around 9 and had some great eggs, potatoes and toast. We packed up early to go ride the dirt roads off NW winds. It was my first down winder that day. The first of two down winders started at the 3rd dirt rode and ended at the first. Which is about 1.5 miles of coast line. I had a little trouble for about 2/3rds of the run, but towards the end I was really starting to rock it. I was obviously the first one to the beach were I really nice guy from New York helped me bring in my kite and told us of a better place to launch for our next down winder. He offered me a ride back up the beach but I waited for the rest of the guys to finish. I wound up taking a 30-45 minute nap on my kite waiting for them to arrive. We were all amped to get back on the water quick so kyle and tom went to go get the truck and drew and I packed up the kites. We drove past the 3rd dirt road to our launching spot. This down winder was amazing it was 2.5 miles of coast line where I really got to dial in my riding. I really got everything working most of my turns and toe riding and really being able to stay up wind. It was nothing short of the best ride ever. To add to that I was suppose to get to the beach to film everyone as they came close to the landing, the only problem was was that I was having too much fun out there I didn’t want to come in. I was the second to last to land. This became a recurring problem; hence we really have no footage for a video. Needless to say I can finally ride at the level I wanted to. We tried for a third down winder but I caught the last blow of wind. I edged out heal side trying out drew north board and the wind just left. So I got to body drag back to shore and had a nice almost mile walk back up the shore with all of my crap. We packed up and headed back to beach happy to have a couple drinks, hot tub it and change clothes. We headed out to find some food. we quickly found out it was a locals only restaurant, but you know what we really didn’t care, we all just had 2 amazing rides. They really did have some good food though. We ate and played trivial pursuit, then went back to beach happy for some more drinks, hot tub and movies.

Day 3
Started the morning off about the same time with eggs potatoes wraps and screwdrivers by master chef drew. There was not a blade of grass moving when we got up. So we just hung out around beach happy. We went down the beach and threw the Frisbee and just chilled out. 3:30 rolled around and the wind started blowing. We rode the opposite down winder from the first dirt road to the chimmy chungas on the S winds. I got to put up a 16 vegas and we all got out there. It was just nuking out there we were all totally powered. Tom finally hit his back roll and I launched my kite for the first time and started playing around with wake style jumps. That was probably our longest down winder. The sun was going down in the sky as we packed up the gear from the landing spot. We drove back down to the first dirt rode. Tom and I decided to go out and ride a sunset session. Kyle and drew hung out on the beach to watch us down wind. This down winder I will never forget. Bot of us just sore as can be just cruised back and forth down the same run as last. The sun was setting to left and the moon was full in front of a perfectly blue sky to my right, and all on calm water. Tom and I were out there completely alone except for a pair of windsurfers. We got down to the 2nd dirt road where there were a bunch of people watching the sunset including kyle and drew. Tom came by them first and launched his kite jumping about 10 feet and biffed it hard and everyone clapped. I came in powered and gave them a little method (the only thing I could do at the time) we kept on riding down wind as the sun quickly approached the horizon. Tom was first and I was right be hind him just crusing into the gleam of the sun. It became dark rather quickly so we decided to land at the 3rd dirt road. We packed up the gear in the moonlight and waked the quarter mile down a winding sandy off road to the main road. Where kyle and drew drove up as we got to the road with cold ones waiting for us. A session neither of us will ever forget.

Day 4
Woke up around 9:30. We were suppose to meet up with the North kiteboardign guys and some others at kiting hatteras, and learned there was no wind until 12. So we drove south to find food. We pulled in to this little diner. Randomly the North kiting guys were chilling eating breakfast at the table next to us. We ate and left to get back to beach happy. We packed up our gear and headed to go do a mini down winder from the pier to beach happy when we got the call to meet across from kite point for a ocean session down winder. We were the first to beach since we were all packed up any ways. We got out there and it was nuking! I put up my 13m and even completely depowered was getting dragged around a bit. So we all took down our kites and tried it again with smaller kite. The rest of the guys showed up then. As soon as we had all the lines connected the lines the wind died nearly completel, and they were calling for 20-30s. We were all like great. So we waited and the wind came again. John, one of the North team riders went out first with a 9m and a surfboard and was rocking. John was a super cool guy I got to talk to him a bit and could not have been any nicer or down to earth. Sky the other team rider went out shortly after with a 9m and a twin. He just pounded through the waves steezly making his way past the break. Approaching the last swell set he went HUGE with a big kitelooooooooop back roll, we think, whatever it was it brew us all way. The rest of us followed shortly after. I made it out pasted the break and the wind once again left us. So I some how made it back to shore and walked half mile back to the van. We packed up and headed back to beach happy for food. We went out to grab some grub at a bar and went back to beach happy once again to chill out and get a good nights sleep for the long drive home.

Day 5
It is beautiful day here about 80 and sunny but no wind. Since there was no wind this morning we cleaned all the gear and the cars and packed everything back up for the trip home. We are about 2 hours into our drive back to MI.

well we all made it back alive. we hit both boynes, nubs and mt. marquette. Boyne mt. was a great start. their boxes were kind of crap but they had two fun jump. i found the knuckle hard on the first day that was fun start. and they had a huge quater pipe which we got some good shots on. ask marc how his head is. The hylands, i think we all enjoyed a little better than the mt. they had 2 sets of 3 booters. we took some amazing shots on the larger sets of kickers. Nubs, well they really surprised me. we had a little run in with the management and they turned out to be extremely rude. Thats all ill say about that. marquette was amazing i had an amazing time there though it was the only day that was not sunny. Rob u missed out u would have loved that park. we took 5-6 DV tapes of footage. 15+ good useable footage. everyone came back pretty beat up. we meet a couple cool riders on our adventure. and just had a great time riding together.