Stunt kite flying at the beach

Yesterday I drove for about 30 minutes to fly my Prism Nexus at a nearby beach called Sen-bon-hama in Numazu, Japan. Instead of sand though it had pebbles and a lot of washed up seaweed. On the plus side though, it was so easy to fly my stunt kite in the wind coming off the sea!

It was the first time I fully appreciated the wind window effect. As I flew towards the edge of the window my stunt kite would begin to loose some power. Then bringing the kite back into the center of the window sped things up again.

Even launching after poor landings was the easiest I've ever experienced. Admittedly I'm still not sure the best way to go about re-launches from various positions, but the consistent winds certainly helped.

After one particularly poor landing which included a few twists in my lines I had to perform the walk of shame (going back to my kite to move it into proper launch position). As my lines were still attached to my wrists, it had the effect of tangling my lines up amongst all the seaweed and debris on the beach. Sorting them out again took me about 30 minutes! Much worse than the walk of shame itself!

By the time I had sorted my lines out, the wind had died down considerably. So I practiced launching then gently lowering my stunt kite back to the ground into launch position.

Flying-wise, it was great fun to feel a consistent wind in my kite's sail. Still so much to learn and it was great fun too. I was experimenting by allowing my lines to get twisted multiple times as I rotated the kite one way then back to straighten things out.

Even though I have only been flying a stunt kite for about a week I can already see that as I put time into flying, I am improving. I look forward to improving my stunt kite flying skills on a daily basis!