Last weekend though was great. Was able to go out with the 8sqm on both Saturday and Sunday.

I’m sitting at home at the moment, being chilly and all. I hoped to get off to an early start today to do some kiting in the late afternoon. Well, I did get up at 6′ish, but didn’t quite hold out the entire day. I think the sessions last weekend were kind of a bit too much, to say the least. Will have to take it easy for a couple of days. Fortunately no courses this week, only internal work to do.

Anyway, Lars, Marc and I got some good kiting done yesterday. We went to the beach at around 2′ish. It wasn’t such a long session (we stayed until 5.30 or so), but it was good. I also bumped into Jeroen, one of the guys working Telstar, the kite shop where I usually buy my gear. He was out on the water for the second time after having revalidated from braking his back in 6(!) places. While holding his 12sqm 2009 Gaastra Jekyll to the ground he said the winds were not blowing hard enough yet. Can you imagine I was out with my 8sqm? Well, in his defense, he had shortened his lines, which gives you a bit less power in your kite.

Anyway, Jeroen and friends were doing some great tricks of which I took a few pictures. There are also some pictures of me making a couple of airs. It’s not that brutal yet, but I’m getting there… Also, this was the 8sqm and the current really kept me from picking up serious speed and thus higher airs (but well, those are just excuses ).

After wrapping up Lars and I had pancakes in a very traditional Dutch restaurant in Heemstede. We both finished almost two and a salad. I don’t I’ve ever eaten that much pancake in one day…

More pictures by the way in the corresponding Picasa web gallery. The guy in the white Mystic lycra; that’s me…

Yesterday Lars and I had a great session at Wijk aan Zee. Unfortunately the wind was a little too light to go upwind with my 8sqm, so I had to take the 12sqm. The power in this kite is big and the bar pressure is a bit on the heavy side. So when I got out my 8sqm later in the afternoon, it was a breeze going in and out against the waves.

It was blowing about 18 to 20 knots in the afternoon from west-south-westerly direction. The swell came from the same direction and that’s always when things start to get a bit messy… But all and all it was a good, intense and long session. Started at 1.30pm and quit at about 6pm.

This afternoon it is supposed to blow a little more, so that’ll definitely be enough for the 8sqm! I’m heading out in half an hour. I think I’ll use my new bar. I have two Gaastra kites that use the same bar. The bar that I used up until now starts to get a bit quirky, so I’ll switch to the new bar.

Tomorrow also should be great. I think I’ll get up to an early start tomorrow to be able to do some serious kiting in the afternoon, with winds approaching 30 knots…

Last Saturday we went to the beach. Normally in October you have to dress up pretty warm when going to the beach but this time, the weather was unusually warm. We spent the entire day on the beach (arrived at 11am). In the evening, Timboektoe hosted their annual closing party. The Lefties Soul Connection were performing live and there were a few good DJs.

The snails were put on the beach just for this event and later in the night, some people put them on fire, so nothing was left the following morning. You can also see Giorgio the little Italian carry his board (the longest board you could get… the waves weren’t very good) back to the rental place. All and all, a nice day.

We finally got home at about 4.30am. I’m already looking forward to Timboektoe opening again next Spring. Every year in Autumn, the place closes up near the end of September or the beginning of October. The winter storms go all up the way up the dunes, so there’s no way a place like Timboektoe could ever survive if they left the place on the beach. That’s why they’re breaking it up on Monday. So that means no more hot chocolade with rum after a good kite session at Timboektoe for a little while… I’ll have to bring my own

Here’s one of the pictures I took. All the others are available in my online album.

I do have some pictures now that might explain the injury a little bit. First, there’s me kiting, like I never done anything else in my life (errrr…).

But then there’s my lying on the ground in a very strange position :S Not sure what happened here, but this isn’t how things are supposed to be.

When we arrived, things looked even better. It was blowing somewhere between 20 and 25 knots of wind. There were five of us and we were on our boards till we literally fell of from being exhausted.

Now yesterday there was supposed to be some wind too, but unfortunately, things turned out to be a little different than expected, so I didn’t get to do a lot of kiting yesterday. I did go the beach and geared up however. And while packing everything up again to go home, I was in soooo much of a hurry that I forgot my bar and harness… Stupid!!! Fortunately I just learned this guy actually found my gear and I’m hoping to pick it up real soon…

Today was different from Friday but also a LOT OF FUN. I convinced a few friends of mine to join me in going to Wijk aan Zee. One of them is a wave surfer and although there were hardly any waves, he felt like doing a bit of long boarding. On our way to Wijk aan Zee, things were terrible. It was raining and it looked like there wasn’t any wind at all…

When we arrived we found there *really* was no wind, so we decided we’d first have lunch. I took out my iPhone and started browsing a little bit. There are plenty of sites about where you can find out what the current conditions are and they all said it was going to be better soon. We decided to stay although many others were actually leaving… And about an hour later, the wind picked up!!! And it didn’t *just* pick up, it was raging… Within 2 hours, the wind went from a 10 knot low, to a 27 high with gusts of close to 40 knots. The weather wasn’t great, but it didn’t rain.

The good thing was the forecast had predicted a little, but not such a strong picking up of the winds, so many people didn’t bring there 6-9sqm kites… But I did

So all and all it was a great weekend. I do have a strained muscle right now, which is going to slow me down for the next few days. But well, that doesn’t really matter. I’m flying to London tomorrow for week’s worth of work, so I’ll have to take care of not arriving to late at the airport. I guess going to gate C is going to take me 20 minutes instead of the usual 10 tomorrow

Later, I’ll post some pictures of Friday’s session. Mark took out his high-quality tele lens, so these should be good… Also, check out his Flickr stream, there are lots more pictures there…

It wasn’t much of a session, as the winds quickly dropped to levels where I could not get decent enough speed anymore with my 12sqm. I forgot to bring my 16.5sqm (stupid!!!). The other two guys did bring their bigger kites, but then again, jumping and decently going up-wind was pretty much impossible for them too…

At least I got to shoot some soul-session like pictures…

Now for a quick bite and off to my friends to celebrate New Year’s.