Had organised to meet Mick for another 2 hour lesson at 1 pm. Phone call this morning changed the plan to a 3 hour lesson from 12 pm. Some doubt about our capacity to endure 3 hours but went for it anyway. Covered a number of things today including self rescue, powering and depowering the kite, more body dragging (Chris with board, me without). Managed the self rescue quite well – involves releasing the kite with the quick release then rolling up the lines and climbing onto the kite and “sailing” it back to chore downwind. Unfortunately after this my kite relaunching from water went downhill and had to practice until I got it right! Wasn’t “caressing” the kite and lines enough and was too impatient trying to get it back in the air – apparently you have to be gentle and wait for the kite to be ready to launch in the right place. Chris made it as far as trying to get up on the board (closest I got to a board was standing on on one on the beach).
All in all a very useful 3 days (6 hours tuition total) and Mick was a patient and organised instructor. Ally and Jeff had some fun too but the wind lightened towards the end of the afternoon, making things a little less interesting. Dithered about whether further lessons were in order over a cup of coffee at the Coffee Stop at One Mile Jetty, but given the wind forecast (for much lighter winds), decided to forego more lessons and push on south the next day. Would highly recommend Mick and Kitemix if you want to learn to kitesurf.
And so our overnight stop in Carnarvon draws to a close….