Wednesday - 6/11
Wednesday morning I woke up and the wind was blowing pretty much due west. I cooked breakfast and rolled out my 12m to let it dry and look at the tear a bit more. After I got it dried and all the sand knocked off I wrapped it up real tight for shipping. I inspected it twice looking for any other tears or pinholes but couldn't find anything. I knew there was one in there somewhere because I caught it in the zipper a few days ago. I was frustrated that I couldn't find it but was pretty confident that had nothing to do with this new rip. When I had it all packed up and in the bag I spotted the pinhole easily. I cut a piece of kite tape and put it on. Because of where it is thougth I don't think it will stay. I'm new to the kite tape so maybe I need to do it differently than I did. I'll play with it more and figure it out.
By the time I left camp around 11 the wind had started to shift to north. The predictions were calling for this so I was expecting it. What I didn't think about was that since it blew west all night long then turned north the big cloud of smoke from the fire on the mainland made it's way right to my campground. As I drove up to Buxton the air was filled with smoke. I decided to hit the coffee shop again and check the wind. The wind had sure enough shifted but it hadn't cranked up enough to ride yet. I needed to hit the shop and buy a new valve adapter for my Crossbow so i headed to Ocean Air up the road a bit. They carry North and Cabrinha kites which is great because that's my quiver right now. I got there and unfortunately they didn't have any of the adapters but one of the guys called Cabrinha and found out they could order some so he sold one off a pump they had in back. Thank god because without that I would be down to just my 9m until I replaced it.
After leaving Ocean Air I headed out to the ocean side of the island. In Hatteras you can drive your car right on the beach, if you have 4 wheel drive that is. I cruised down as far as I could go on one of the access roads and watched some guys fish while I had lunch.
After leaving the beach I headed back south toward Kite Point. I figured I'd see if anyone had showed up yet to hang out with since we weren't going to kite yet. On the way I stopped by a bead shop to try to find a new necklace to replace the 2nd one I lost in the ocean. Why I don't take them off I do not know, guess I just don't think about it at the time. It's cool though b/c they are cheap and made mostly of clay so nothing too bad going in the water. The shop didn't have anything but I did decide to grab a Blizzzard from the DQ next door. I haven't had any kind of sweets in at least a month now. After driving by this DQ like 7 times I finally decided I deserved some ice cream. hah. I walked in and randomly enough the guy behind the counter was a kiter I met at the beach the day before! I actually gave him my last beer so he gave mea free Blizzard in return. Funny how karma works ya know? We talked for a bit about the wind and stuff then I headed on.
When I was driving back to Kite Point it looked like the wind had picked up. The flags were flapping steady. Since the island is pretty thin and there is only one road down it, Highway 12, you can see if there are kites up on either side, ocean or sound. As I'm getting close to Kite Point I see 2 kites go up on the ocean side. Then I see a kite up on the sound side. I didn't see the drive on access for the ocean side so I pulled into Kite Point. A few guys were hanging out waiting for the wind and one guy was upwind a bit riding. He was on a 14m Switchblade and didn't look very powered. I checked the wind at the water and got a reading of 16 mph. More than I expected. Unfortunately not enough for my 9m and I had left my 16m at the campsite. After watching the guy for a bit I decided I would run back to camp and grab my 16m. If anything it was going to build just a little then die off so there was no chance I'd ride my 9m.
When I got back a few more guys, and a chick, had showed up. They were all rigging 12s because that's their biggest kite. I got my 16m pumped and got out there. Because the wind was NNW it was a little light near shore then plenty strong on the outside. I was actually pretty overpowered when I got out about a mile. The tide was out so the water was super shallow. One section was super flat and you could just bomb across it. My board digs in real well because of the big fins. I was able to toss up a wake probably 5 feet high and throwing it out 6 or 7 feet away from me. Just a big guess on speed I was probably peaking somewhere around 30 mph. I love riding in flat water but I have to say I don't like super shallow water. It was so shallow I wasn't even sure if there was enough room to ride. I kept expecting to hit my board on the bottom. Riding here just confirms the fact that Pleasure Bay in Boston is awesome! That spot is flatter than the Buxton Slick in Hatteras and super deep. Of course everything has to be right for that to happen and it gets crowded but still good to know we have a sick spot in my neighborhood.
Since I was overpowered on the outside and underpowered on the inside it was a little hard to get way upwind. After a while I just got bored with tacking back and forth. Since I was on my 16m every time I jumped I would go way down wind. My crossbow is super floaty because it turns so damn slow. It's hard to get a good pop with height then whip the kite down to land quick. I finally got enough upwind to get back to shore so I decided to call it quits. I landed and was going to sit in the water to watch the other guys but funny enough they all came in about 2 minutes after I did. None of them were able to get back upwind though so they landed way down the beach and had to walk it back. Guess I wasn't the only one struggling.
After we all got back to the cars I hung out with some of the locals, Don & Diane. They said they each get over 100 days on the water a year. Diane said she got something like 130 days last year. That ain't bad at all. They were both older and had been kiting for years. I love seeing the older guys out there riding. Just shows the versatility of this sport. Everyone things you have to be young and in amazing shape but that really isn't the case. These guys were well into their middle ages and not in bad shape but not in crazy good shape either. Don said it's just the beer keeping his belly around though. hah. I could kind of believe it because he had a custom wooden rear bumper on his truck with built in coasters for a beer on each side of the tailgate. Should have gotten a picture it looked pretty sweet and such a good idea. he said he got tired of knocking over his beer so he added the cup holders last year. Probably saves 50 bucks on beer a year just from that. hah.
After splitting from the beach I decided I'd hit this place called Pop's. I had heard from the guy camping next to me the first morning that they had crawfish for 10 bucks a pound. Not a bad price for this late in the season. I pulled in and the place was great. Real locals joint. Small with a few tables around the walls and a bar in the center. I sat down and this older fat extremely gay guy that was giving the bartender a really hard time introduced himself. He was a funny guy and gave everyone a laugh with his random ass comments on things.
For food I already knew what I wanted before I got there but I checked out the menu anyways. Lots of good stuff for a pretty good price considering where I'm at. I asked where the oysters were from and was hoping they where from Apalachicola but no luck. Bartender said they were from Virginia right now. That's cool though gives me some more comparison of oysters. I want to get to where I know wether or not to order based on where they are from. These were 5 bucks for half a dozen 9 for a full so totally worth trying them. Made sure the crawfish were from Louisiana and not Cali and put my order in. The bartender said they were pretty decent size so I was optimistic. From what I saw in New Orleans they could totally suck.
The oysters came out and were pretty different than the Gulf ones I've been eating along the trip. They were super small and didn't have near the flavor as the Apalachicola ones. They were still pretty good though. I definitely like the smaller oysters over the big ass ones from Galveston and the LA coast. Those are just too slimy.
The crawfish came out and I was pretty damn impressed. The bugs weren't huge but were plenty big considering it's almost mid June. Also the claws were really big compared to the bodies. I was able to get in and eat a lot of the claw meat. Unfortunately I could tell they cooked them really fast and didn't use a lot of season in the water. The claw meat stuck pretty good and I had to break open most of them with my teeth and dig the meat out with another claw. I think I'm picking up lobster eating skills and transferring them to crawfish. hah. Even though the meat wasn't spiced up they did douse the plat with cajun spice before serving them. As gross as this may sound to some the way I had to do it to get the flavor was just lick down the whole body before popping it open and getting the tail. Easiest thing to do is just toss the whole thing in your mouth tail first and suck on it like a popsicle. hah. I'm sure I looked disgusting to some of the people at the bar. The bartender said not many people come in that suck the heads so I'm sure no one puts the whole damn thing in their mouth. I put the whole plate down pretty quick. Finally got my tail pulling skills back. The trick to getting a lot of crawfish at a party is not wasting time. Most people peel the tail but the trick is to just pinch the end of the tail and pull the whole thing out with your teeth. If you gently bite down on the little flap of meet that goes up the crawfish's back and wiggle the tail a bit you can get it to pull right out. That way you can eat them 3 times as fast as people pealing each tail. :)
After I finished the plate I asked where they were getting their crawfish from. They said they come from.Beaudroux's (sp) in Westwego, LA. I'm going to look them up when I get home and see if they can get me some crawfish for my return party later this month. :) So with 2 pounds of crawfish down and a half order of oysters, plus two beers and 2 huge glasses of water I was delightfully full. Got the check and it was only 30 bucks. Gotta say I was happy with that. Considering I can't get crawfish in Boston and if I could that with 2 beers and oysters I would be in for probably twice that if not more.
After I finished up I decided to head across the street to this little fish place. A couple had come in for dinner while I was there and asked if there were any places open later on the island, which there aren't many. The bartender said the place across the street had karaoke going on that night so there should be people there. I wasn't too excited about the karaoke considering the piss poor display of singing a few night back at the Sandbar. But there were a ton of cars and a load of cute girls getting out of a suburban when I walked outside, figured it was at least worth a look. hah. I did at least change into some jeans and put on a better shirt. I had just come from the beach so was looking pretty ratty.
When I got across the street I found out the bar was actually just the back of the restaurant. They had dock right out on the water of the cove coming in. There wasn't a bar really just a cute chick with a cooler full of beer and a bucket for the money. Also instead of karaoke it was an open jam session. This was much better than what I expected. The dock was pretty packed and everyone seemed to be having fun. I ran into the couple from Pop's and talked for a few min. The band was a bunch of older hippy looking folks just playing standard bar covers. The chick playing bass wasn't that great and I wasn't sure if she was part of the band or just someone from the bar. I haven't played with a band in probably 5 years but I decided what the hell not going to sit and watch when I could play. I waited a few songs to make sure she had plenty of playing then asked if I could jump in. Turns out it was her rig and she was plenty cool with letting me play.
Now for anyone that knows my playing I really don't know any songs to be honest. That was always my problem, I could never remember the changes and always had to have the charts with me. Luckily rock is so lame you can just call out the changes on the stage and they are easy enough to remember. After playing the first song the drummer looked over at me and was like "Hey, you kiteboard." Sure enough he was one of the guys at the beach yesterday. And I saw him that day driving off. He was one of the guys on the ocean side riding. Pretty cool that I got to session the water and jam with the guy within a day. After about two songs another guy jumped up to sing and play guitar. His name was Todd and he was a pretty experienced player and a solid band leader so that was cool. I told him I could follow whatever just let me know the changes. I don't think he was sure about that but after a song or two he wasn't worried at all. :) We played a variety of things from then on out. Some Grateful Dead, Jack Johnson, Fleetwood Mac, standard Bluesy stuff, and other classic rock songs I can't remember the names of (fun one was that song that one that goes "Stop now, what's that sound, everybody look what's going down.." never played it before but super easy and it sounded great. Everyone was digging the songs and we played for a little over an hour until the bar shutdown. I kept offering the girl her bass back so she could play but she was cool with letting me play. Super nice lady. Oh also this girl Jessica got in and played flute a bit. She could actually play so that was cool.
After we finished up I talked with the drummer, Lane, and the guy that was singing. They were all impressed with my playing so that was cool. There are so few decent bass players around which sucks for most people out there just playing *** bars here and there. It was really cool to play though since it's been so long. One of the things I've decided on this trip is that I'm going to start playing again when I get back home. I've got to figure out how I'm going to make it happen with my work travel but it is going to happen. I told myself when i switched from music to computers in college that I would keep music for myself and just play. The last 5 years I haven't played at all. It's time for that *** to stop. If it doesn't work with my work schedule than my work schedule needs to accommodate it, it's as simple as that. I'm in a great town for music and not taking advantage of playing. Work isn't worth that, especially at HC. Best plan I can come up with is to find bands I can sub with when they need someone. Since I can follow any changes you tell me all I need is one of the guitar players to show me the *** on stage or just have some cheat sheets with the tunes we plan on playing. This is just one of the things on my list to straighten out when I get home so we'll see.
After talking with the guys for a bit we all parted ways. Got back to the campground and got a good night sleep. Pretty awesome day really. :)
After writing and before posting update. Before leaving the campground Todd rolled by. I had a feeling I might see him since he said he was going to stay at the same campground I was at. I had sent him a text saying he should get over there and get my spot because it was about the best one there. He didn't get it yet but randomly came by at just the right time. He switched the one he had picked out for mine and we talked a bit while I was packing up my gear. He's a pretty cool guy and just here for a few weeks to chill out and get some surfing in. He's said he's trying to figure out how he can be just a surfer and a musician going forward for a few years. Pretty cool that he's going to give that a go. Don't worry though (Dad) I'm not going to follow suit or anything. hah.
Kyle