Kitesurf Atlas, Kiteboarding Holidays, Kite Surf Lessons

Florida Winter 2009
& The Worldwide Crisis

As the worldwide economic crisis began sinking its teeth in earnest during the late fall of 2008 I pondered what the winter season would turn out like in Florida. Sadly, as expected, the kiting industry has been hit hard – gear sales are way off hurting all manufacturers; lesson traffic is way down hurting all the instructors; travel and vacation budget have been all but eliminated for many people worried about their finances. My own lesson traffic has been down 60%! and very few kites and boards sold.

The winter here (December thru February) was colder than I ever remember it from past years– and to make matters worse – much less reliable wind. I remember 2 years ago when we had 17 consecutive weekends of great wind – and this year we have had maybe 2 or 3! Could there be some strange connection between the global economy and lack of wind?! It certainly feels that way.

Well, looking at the bright side – there are less people on the water, less people on the beach, less traffic, the fly-by-night kite instructors are disappearing. May as well enjoy all of that. While the economic situation is very bad I remain confident that things will be sorted out – eventually. I hope that our society learns something about the true cost of “conspicuous consumption”, irresponsible financial management, and start making government and financial institutions more responsible to customers and tax payers. The next decade may be very tough times for many people. While past recessions and economic hard times were challenging in their own ways, this 2008/2009 event may prove to be catastrophic by comparison.

If nothing else I hope that people can learn to value the important things – family, friends, staying physically and mentally healthy...and STOP consuming and wasting everything. Those who cannot overcome their ludicrous lifestyles and materialistic identities will most likely suffer the most – and perhaps they deserve it.

Fewer new riders have been spotted on the waters, and even veteran riders are rapidly vanishing from the scene. Could it be – kitesurfing has been canceled!? Well, not entirely. While my teaching time has been cut drastically my riding time has remained relatively steady. I have been able to log 58 days of riding out of the last 4 months, with a little over a month to go – so not too bad.

And on another bright note to this - I have become involved with the local beach cat community here – after buying a Prindle 16 for $400, a little TLC and $300 in new parts – I have been out flying a hull in sub-15 kt wind almost as many days as I have kited. I am now actually torn between my love for kiting and cat sailing, so it is a good thing that cats are great from 5 to 15 kts and kiteboarding is great from 15 kts and up - which makes the decision really easy when choosing one or the other.

There is a local cat sailing club here that has a great facility, some excellent sailors, and a super chilled out atmosphere. The club has become my new hang-out and I am sure that this new passion has literally saved me from going absolutely insane. While it may seem frivolous given the overall situation I am very tempted to upgrade to a high performance cat, such as an A-cat or F16 of some sort. The speed and acceleration of these new high tech cats is absolutely spectacular.

So for those feeling the “need for speed” and the thrill of going fast on the water – go buy a used cat and go sailing! A good used “high-Portsmouth” boat can be purchased for $1000 to $2000*, and if you want a high tech exotic boat, expect to spend anywhere from $6k (used) to $20k (new).

Hopefully it's never too late too have some fun and enjoy life. It really does not have take a lot of money.

*Seems pretty reasonable when you compare this to buying a new $1800 Kookabrinha IDS (I wonder if that is an anachronism for - “I'm a Dumb Shit” for paying this much for a kite)!!!