Hey all...had a freaking ball today with the trainer that I couldn't get airborne before. Was at the Naples beach for an early swim and for some reason I just felt the wind was up a tad so I said the hell with it and whipped down to tigertail beach and made the 2 mile walk to get away from everyone and set up the 3m trainer. When I hit the beach there, I knew it was enough wind and the kite just danced then fell softly then I realized I needed to fly the kite once it was 4 ft in the air to one side and BAM the kite shot up in the air perfect
I immediately started steering the kite and I was amazed how much you have to move the bar to get a response sometimes. Anyway, I had the kite in the air for at least 15 minutes of fun then repeated that a few times. I did figure 8's the whole time, some tight, some large and got some good body dragging in, even tried some one handed dragging, I couldn't come close to dragging upwind though as I either lack experience or the kite/wind and lack of board keep me from doing that.
Only thing bad was I crashed in the water once trying to get low with a figure 8 and once I got the kite turned over I gave it a hell of a tug and I thought I snapped my shoulder out of socket for a moment. I took a break and I think it is alright, but a little sore now. The foil took on a little water so when I yanked on it thinking it would pop up it was like yanking a car.
Anyway, I appreciate some of the words on my last post I made specially the one where someone said to fly the kite with the bridal....flying with the bridal really put the motion in perspective for me. I'm going to do this once again and then head down to Islamorada for lessons or at least the cable practice...maybe make a trip to somewhere more serious like some have said so I get a lump sum of serious practice in vs one day here-one day there. I was looking at Cancun and the place just north of there b/c the flights are cheap to get there. I'm leaning towards trying to risk heading down to Islamorada a couple times when winds could be decent in the next month or so. I've never been south of Miami yet.