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What animal have you encountered on the water?

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Geronimo79
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Re: What animal have you encountered on the water?

Postby Geronimo79 » Thu Jun 27, 2013 9:35 am

I once had a ride with a swan. It flew 3m downwind from me at chestlevel. Was kinda cool.

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Re: What animal have you encountered on the water?

Postby jannik » Thu Jun 27, 2013 9:58 am

Geronimo79 wrote:I once had a ride with a swan. It flew 3m downwind from me at chestlevel. Was kinda cool.
Yes, it really is a massive bird and it takes off super slow and needs to go upwind for a long time. That is not so good if you are in its flight path. If they turn to early they will go down so they are pretty good at playing chicken :D
You can easily count 50 of them on some days around here.

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Re: What animal have you encountered on the water?

Postby coleman » Thu Jun 27, 2013 1:24 pm

it was pretty fun chasing around a large flock of migrating birds in the laguna madre in corpus. must have been 3-4 thousand of them flying right out in front of me.

just last week got a nice little session with a small pod of dolphins with a few newborns at wildcat in corpus. they didnt seem very interested in me of course but the encounter lasted a good 10 minutes.

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Re: What animal have you encountered on the water?

Postby peet » Thu Jun 27, 2013 1:31 pm

A Surf-Dog!

Image

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Re: What animal have you encountered on the water?

Postby jrfiol » Thu Jun 27, 2013 2:01 pm

Other kiters that jump real close to me,

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Re: What animal have you encountered on the water?

Postby dragnfly » Thu Jun 27, 2013 2:11 pm

I sat on a baby sting ray in the shallows in Goa and it stung me on the ass. You would not believe how much pain I was in for the next 3 hours......

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Re: What animal have you encountered on the water?

Postby kitecozumel » Thu Jun 27, 2013 2:43 pm

Dragnfly , I feel your pain , not fun at all. I have been stung 7 times on the feet by stingrays around here while either teaching or kiteboarding :angryfire:

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Re: What animal have you encountered on the water?

Postby Mikey » Thu Jun 27, 2013 11:44 pm

Lots of dolfins! Fun to ride with somtimes they will play for a bit before getting bored and moving on :-)

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Re: What animal have you encountered on the water?

Postby dafish » Fri Jun 28, 2013 5:12 am

Last year I was hit by a shark. Dorsal fin pierced the rail on my board. Total accident as I was traveling at speed one way, it was traveling in the direction toward me. Total fluke. If I didn't have straps on my board it would have chucked me off. I am sure it was as stunned as I was. There was no way it was going for me, at least that is what I tell myself. We do get large great whites from time to time in our bay, but that is something I never really want to see. The bullsharks are enough.
We have dolphins and penguins in our local all the time. Have had them right up next to my board looking at me. The penguins are pretty cute.
The coolest was in Maui this year at Kanaha. So many turtles, good size ones too. Always had to be on the lookout for them and take evasive action. Sometimes I would stop myself and just saddle up next to them to look at them. Was terrific to see so many.

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Re: What animal have you encountered on the water?

Postby Puetz » Fri Jun 28, 2013 6:01 am

plummet wrote:
Puetz wrote:... hammer head shark
... Tiger Shark
... black tip reef shark
... shovel nose shark
... green turtle
... leather back turtle
... dugong
... sting ray
... eagle ray
....manta ray
... flying fish
... box jelly fish
... Irukandji jellyfish

... all the above are all the animals I have hit or been hit by and at least come in contact with while kiting! I've got a story for all of them too. Living in the tropics can be dangerous some times!

cheers,

Robbie :)
I want to here some of these stories. .... come on don't hold out regale use with a few.
... ok, I'll keep them short:

Tiger Shark, kiting along 3.5km upwind of launch spot and about 200m out from a creek mouth. shark lazily on top of the water when I kited over it, clipping the tail fin. Both of us sh!t ourselves and parted ways. It was clearly a tiger shark, maybe 10 -12 foot. The area is know for sharks.

Hammer head shark, same as above only when I clipped it, it turned and I clipped the dorsal fin too, lucky I was on my twin tip and had plenty of wind and power.

Shovel Nose shark, clipped it with my Sector fins when coming in at end of session, in the shallows where they hang out. Here is a video where my son brushed up against one: https://vimeo.com/52364121

Green turtle: flying upwind on sector, cutting really close to some rocks when turtle popped his head up, no time to change direction I missed him by milimeters, still not sure how I missed him.

Leatherback Turtle: this was a huge one and really slow to react. On sector again and not looking for it, amost hit it but being big, I saw it in time to point board down wind. When we made eye contact I'm sure it had a scared face just like me.

Dugong: These will surface slowly and same as other animals, I fly up to it before each other know what the hell is going on. There was once a pair of them and I think they were mating. Side note: back when I was windsurfing, I hit a Dugong at full speed and the huge fin cut it. Found the thing dead on the beach a few days later, so sorry about that one :cry:

Stingray: flying along in a lagoon with my twin tip, sudden ray was just under me and it was racing off under me but happen to go the same direction as I was travelling. While doing mach 9, just as I noticed that it was getting too shallow, roughly 2 inches of water I realized I should gybe. No sooner had I thought it and the damn stingray turned on me and thrashed around trying to stab the board or worse, me. Tail and barb smashing the nose of my board. Madly did a slide turn and headed away, sh!t scared face on me again. Lagoon know for lots of big stingrays by the way.

Eagle rays: I just snapped 2 front lines on kite and was grabbing kite and walking back in waist deep water. Saw a bunch of moving shadows up ahead of me that got me nervous so I reacted by jamming my twin tip into the water and putting it on the ground just infront of my legs when bang,,, the bunch of shadows where eagle rays racing around and one of them hit the board instead of me. Not sure what would have happened had I not put the board infront of me, the other rays flew around me.

Manta ray: kiting along in slow low winds when I kited over it, water was clean and it was clear enough to see it nicely.

Flying fish: kiting along in good winds with my new sunnies on. Saw a flash of white but didn't react thinking it was a piece of chop I just saw. Bang, it hit my shades which flung my head back to see the damn fish flying way from me. It hit square in my left eye would have been had I not been using my new sunnies.

Still got more stories but I'm sure your getting bored by now. Want more, I got more?

We got alot of sea life around us here in the tropics, and most fish life is around a reef 2 and a bit kilometers from our usual launch spot.

cheers for now,

Robbie :D


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