Nitinat Kiteboarding II: Demo Days

Wow - lots of ground for me to cover here! For those of you who have just joined us, this Blog revolves around a group of Vancouver guys learning how to kiteboard and documents each session from the very beginning.

My roommate Ron and I just got back from Nitinat where Naish, North and Mistral were sponsoring 'Demo Days.' This was my second trip to Nitinat this season, and we had organized a group of friends and family to check out the scene, may of whom were first timers and/or beginners.

Here are the kiteboarding pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/extra_chrisb/sets/72157594223219923/

We got there Friday afternoon, in our Budget Rental truck, and on the drive into Nitinat on the gravel road, ran into the logging trucks and forestry staff speeding home for the weekend. We had numerous surprise vehicle encounters but managed to keep our cool and we got to Nitinat Lake safely.

After setting up camp with my sister Karli, Francis and my 2 year old niece Amalia (www.amalia.ca), Ron and I went for brief evening body drags to familiarize ourselves with the environment. Francis is a kick ass chef and made pork chops for dinner. In the evening we socialized with other kiters (beer) and bounced from campfire to campfire. Some people we had met at the various kiting spots, some were old friends, some were instructors, some were people from the local windsurfing & kiteboarding shops, some were Naish and North reps etc. The one person that we met that takes the cake, is the self proclaimed 'Crazy Bob' who is a deaf and mute kiteboarder who loves Nitinat and having a good time. Communicating with Bob is an adventure in itself but we all made it work.

The next day the wind blew from 10am to 7pm (9 hours) consistently at 20-25 knots consistantly. Now that's my rookie estimation so post a comment below if I'm wrong :) There were no more than 15 kites in the water at any given time so it did not feel crowded. Down the beach there were many windsurfers ripping it up. I love the fact that windsurfers and kiteboarders get along and openly interact and help each other out. [RANT] I am happy that it's not like skiers and snowboarders that have a lame rivalry between them. [/RANT]

I wasn't taking lessons this time around and used my own equipment, not learning equipment, for the first time. I had a good time but struggled to get up on the board and stay up. I have been using bigger beginner boards up until this weekend and my lack of skill and my 143 got most of the blame. However I did manage to get up and fall many times and even got to practice tangled lines around my body and a sketchy self-rescue. I did the walk of shame along the beach upwind many times :)

However, the bottom line is that Saturday was an epic day at Nitinat Lake.

Saturday evening featured a camp-site party sponsored by Naish and North, complete with roasted chicken, burgers, smokies, margaritas, beers and yeeeooooowww... Vodka & Red Bull. Dwayne from Strong Kiteboarding prepared fresh tuna on rice with lemon, served on an upside down Ocean Rodeo board. Prizes and swag were given out and I managed to score a Naish T-shirt plus a North visor and North Promo DVD. For those of you that got copies of the DVD, put it in. I watched the first half-hour of it and was blown away! (lame kiteboarding joke) Ron is downstairs watching it as I type this kiteboarding blog and download my kiteboarding pictures. We partied into the wee hours and woke up Sunday morning to find...

Sunday sucked because there was no wind and it lightly rained. We packed up camp, said our goodbyes and went home. Nuff said.

I hope to elaborate more on this trip later with stories including;

* The mistaken lost rental vehicle from the ferry line up
* Rob and Jim from Vancouver and the urinal story
* sister's kiteboarding lessons
* dogs stealing food
* naked man in river
* Philippe form Airtime Board Sports (thanks for lending me the borad)
* Vince from North Shore Ski and Sailboard rescuing me in the Sea-Doo
* Ron crashing my Naish X4 into the tree and Colin and Melanie's help with the branches
* Tom's cackle
* Mark's huge air yard sale
* Berndt's first air

* Bobson selling BigWaveDave t-shirts

Please feel free to leave comments below and enjoy the pictures! If you want any of the high resolution pictures (taken with 7.1 megapixel Canon PowerShot S70), email me at chris.breikss@gmail.com