Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

The weather and the holiday preparations kept us from doing any flying for a couple of weeks.  But Christmas Day was sunny and warm-“ish” and gave us a pretty nice day to spend on the  beach.  The only thing missing was the wind.  It was either very, very light or it was non-existent.  Luckily I have a special kite bag just for days like that.  Filled with kites that prefer days like that.  (It’s not a very big bag, I must say.)  So Christmas Day was spent with friends, flying what we could and enjoying time on the winter beach.

I’m pretty sure you already know which kites I flew this day.  There have been quite a few low wind days this past year and I have taken photos of them every time they have been in the air.  But on this day I dug out a kite I haven’t flown in a long time.  A first generation super-light wind kite, the Chiroptera by Will Sturdy.  Will began designing and building kites when he was in high school.  He went on to college and a career and quit the kite building business.  But now I hear he has re-designed this kite and is building it again.  Perfecting it as a zero wind kite for all the indoor kite flyers.  I anchored this kite to a sand bag and it flew for the longest time with the least attention.

I tried to anchor my other kites in order to get a photo of them all together.  However, they needed a bit more attention as the wind would gust and then let up.  Much like a person breathing.  (Mother Nature – breathing.)  So the most I could do was two kites in the air at one time.  That was enough to catch the eye of the people walking the beach.  The Phoenix and the Dunton-Taylor box kites were easy to launch and stayed up pretty well until the wind dropped below one mph.  The Wala II took a lot more work and I had to remove the streamer tail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really love the winter beach.  It is peaceful and relativity empty, not crowded with vacationers.  Of course, there is more space to fly kites but also the pace of life seems to slow down on a winter beach.  Another reason to like the winter is the ability to drive on the beach.  After one purchases a vehicle pass from the local municipality.  This reduces a lot of heavy lifting and carrying of the kite bags.  And, if need be, provides a convenient anchor for those very large kites.

The biggest hazard to driving on the beach is getting on and off the beach.  There are a limited number of access points.  This is a good thing as it keeps random vehicles off the sand dunes and controls the flow of traffic.  However, as people use these access points, the sand can become soft and even a four-wheel drive vehicle with an experienced beach driver can get stuck.

Just another beautiful day on the winter beach.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!!!

Fair Winds All