Month: January 2016

The Problem With ‘Hanging Out’ At The Kite Shop

It seems we just can’t catch a break.  After a few days of cold temperatures, it warmed somewhat but the warmer air brought rain the for the weekly club fly.  The morning broke with gray skies, an ugly misty rain and little to no wind.  By the time we got to the beach, the winds had come up strong.  Or as is said around here, “blowin’ a gale”.  And there was standing water on the sand.  I did have my Flexifoil with me and could have flown it in those winds but I don’t particularly like putting my bags or kites down on wet sand.  So we headed to the kite shop to spend some time and chat.

The problem with hanging out at the kite shop is that you are on site when boxes of kites are opened for inspection.  In this case, a shipment of long-awaited Hyperkites arrived.  I currently have three stacks of Hyperkites.  A vintage stack of six in rainbow colors with the original wooden dowel frames.  I have never flown this set and I know it is going to need some work before it is flyable.  The second one is a nine stack made up of berry, wine and slate colored kites.  The third is a six stack of gold, green and blue.  I have been toying with the idea of enlarging the last two stacks but the colors have not always been available.  And that was a good excuse not to.  However, when this box was opened, there were the colors I was looking for.  I made a quick decision to enlarge both stacks while I could as you never know when another shipment would come in.

NineStack
Nine Stack of Hyperkites Guarded by The House Supervisor
Six Stack of Hyperkites
Six Stack of Hyperkites

So I ended up buying six new Hyperkites, tails and necessary train lines to add them to my stacks.  Now I have to remove the bridals from the new kites and add them to my current stacks with the new train lines.  Not a hard task but tedious.  I may end up taking the old stacks apart in order to update the order of the colors to accommodate the new kites.  We shall see.

So the problem with “hangin’ out” at the kite shop is it costs money and gives me another task to do in my “free time”.  Oh well, maybe the weather will be cold and wet a little longer so I am forced to stay  indoors and catch up on all those little kite tasks I’ve been putting off and the new ones I’ve just gained.

Fair Winds All

Our Last Fly of 2015

Christmas Day dawned warm and foggy.  So foggy, in fact, you couldn’t see the ocean from the boardwalk.  So the kite fly was canceled.  The day after Christmas was just about the same, although the fog did burn off a little earlier in the day.  We went for a quick fly in the late afternoon.  The wind was about 2 mph so not much would fly.  However, we did anchor a Skate and fly the Black Dog UL.  It wasn’t much but it made up for the previous day.

The Sunday morning kite club fly at Fort Macon State Park turned out to be glorious.  The temperature was unseasonably warm, the sun was out and the clouds came and went.  The winds were a little stronger than the day before with the best winds up high.  This made getting things launched harder but once they were up, they stayed up.  We put up a couple of Skates and I got out my Black Dog UL and my Wisp II.

Several of the usual club members were there and were joined by a couple of new families.  It looked like a festival when everyone got their kites in the air.  There were several smaller deltas, a Ghost Delta, a couple of Walas, our Skates, a Plutz, a Laima and a Rokkaku.  One newer flyer was trying to fly her Skydog Dream On stunt kite.  The wind was a little too light for it, so I had her try the Into The Wind Wisp II.  She took to it right away.  Then she proceeded to pass it on to two other new flyers and we both gave them some instruction.  The little Wisp was a hit for all who tried it.

MorningFly

The company and the day was so great, the club fly lasted well into the afternoon.  Only hunger drove us off the beach.  As the afternoon wore on, the wind picked up and we all went to the Atlantic Beach public access to join some more of our flyer friends and put up some more kites.  And, again, it looked like another kite festival in progress.  Kites in the air included a Rokkaku, a Sky Skimmer, a Conyne Delta, a Ghost Delta, a Fled and various smaller deltas.  The sun was setting when we finally pulled in the lines and headed for home.

Evening

So went the last kite fly of 2015.  It couldn’t have ended better.  Now we look forward to 2016 and a year filled with old friends, new friends and new kiting adventures.

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Fair Winds All and Happy New Year!