by Micah Sanders

4th of July at Floras Lake, OR. Saw, light wind, heavy wind, flat water, waves, Zombies, Pirates, Wild animals, and even some fireworks.

Bill and Anna from Kite Zombies were up from Nor Cal. Which must have made Nate from Air Pirates www.air-pirate.com in Nor OR. Jealous, because he made it down too! Everyone, including Andy from Floras Lake Kiteboarding www.floraslake.com, got to put the Bandit through its paces. We saw anything from 14m light wind fun to heavy wind kite looping (I’m talking about you Nate and Andy).
Tuesday on the way out of town I hooked up with some great locals who were kind enough to share a down wind ride and some head high waves with me at Whiskey Run. Can’t wait until next year and if you’ve never made it to Floras Lake before, do yourself a favor and get out there! A shallow fresh water lake with ocean wind, miles of downwind wave riding opportunities, does it get any better? Yep, killer seafood, amazing hot dogs (Langlois General Store), a Wild Animal Park, and great people.

The Kite Shop Miami tksmiami.com is now a full F-One Demo Center and will kick off the season with a full F-One Demo Week April11-15th in Crandon Park. Contact Juan and his crew, they have all the latest F-One gear, bandit 4, twin tips, trax, Acid, Bamboo surf collection, etc…

The Association of Wind and Water Sports Industries (AWSI) has partnered with Surf Expo (www.surfexpo.com) to host our annual trade show event for all manufacturers, distributors, and retailers in the Windsurf, Kiteboard, and SUP industries. This will be the only trade event scheduled for 2011, so participants can expect a very well attended show with a large selection of 2012 hardgoods and accessories.

AWSI President Doug Hopkins says that “We had two successful years of running our own trade event in Hood River Oregon, however our members voted and the consensus was to rejoin Surf Expo in Orlando, instead of producing the Hood River show. Their professional marketing draws a large group of buyers, and the timing is perfect (September 8-10, 2011). Surf Expo also offers discounted booth rates for board builders and board accessories manufacturers that will help make the show both affordable and effective.

The “Wind” section will be adjacent to the SUP area, enabling good cross-over for exhibitors selling into both markets.

We are very excited to have AWSI’s participation at the September show,” comments Roy Turner, Surf Expo show director, “and to have its endorsement as the wind industry’s official trade show. We are looking forward to a very successful partnership.”

AWSI will also host the annual industry party Friday night, September 9, 6-8PM. This will include the first annual AWSI Industry Awards, with refreshments and appetizers– so don’t miss it!

In response to member feedback regarding limited time and resources, AWSI will not host a windsurfing/kiteboarding demo in conjunction with Surf Expo as the association has done in the past. Instead all efforts will be focused on maximizing the impact at Surf Expo.

For more information, go to www.AWSIwindsports.org or contact AWSI at PO Box 103, Hood River, OR 97031.

F-One Americas is pleased to announce that Fixmykite is an authorized repairs and warranty center.

FixMyKite will perform repairs and warranty work for F-One kites and guarantee repairs for the life of the kite.

by Traveler Terpening, owner of Desert Wind Kiteboarding, a certified F-One shop and also co-organizer of the yearly Kitefest in Alaska, whom F-One is a proud sponsor.

“This might seem like an odd post,” began a message I wrote on KiteForum this spring, “but I am looking for a hard-working kiter to work with me as a crew member at my commercial fishing site in Bristol Bay, Alaska.”

After commercial fishing in my home state of Alaska on and off since I was 15 years old, I decided this last winter that barfing, being screamed at by agro skippers and killing my body on boats out at sea for weeks on end was strangely becoming less appealing. Although I had “retired” from fishing just about every year, vowing never to return, there was something about commercial fishing that forced me back every year. It was money yes, but it was also the intensity and the vibrancy of the experience combined with remote, wild places, extreme weather and the knowledge that I, and others like me, were some of the world’s last professional hunters.

The romance of the sea going life was fine and dandy but after getting into kiteboarding in early 2000, my priorities began to rapidly change. I was finding myself increasingly less interested in spending Alaska’s short summer fishing and more interested in spending that time kiting. In short, I wanted to work less and play more. But even as kiteboarding threatened to edge out my livelihood it also created unprecedented expenses that made working a regrettable necessity. The question was never whether to give up kiting or fishing but rather how I could do both during Alaska’s short but glorious summers.
The answer came when a Bristol Bay commercial salmon fishing permit came up for sale last year. The wheels started turning in my head and I realized that if the stars aligned, I could not only fish and work for myself but kite as well. Even before I looked at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game stats on recent and projected Bristol Bay catches, I logged on to Google Earth and NOAA to check out the water and wind conditions in Bristol Bay. Although Alaska’s 44,000 miles of coastline are blessed with abundant beaches battered by wind and waves, the Ugashik district, where I would be fishing, was particularly endowed in this regard. A quick phone call to my buddy George, who had fished the area, confirmed, “Oh yea, its windy down there.” The words were music to my ears. “I think the name of the bay even means ‘windy bay’ or something like that.” Were there fish? It didn’t really matter, the kiting was going to be epic!

The loans came through, the forms were signed and I became the proud owner of a permit, a fishing site, some land and a little cabin that through a miracle of geography is lake-front, river-front and ocean-front. Now all I needed was a crewmember who could hack living in the wilderness for two months, picking fish till his fingers bled while standing waist deep in dead fish, working in the wind and rain and at all hours of the day or night then have the energy to go kiting afterward. As it turned out, there were lots of people as excited to do this as I was. Within days of posting the message to KiteForum, my email inbox brimmed with messages, some from deadbeats but many from interesting people from all walks of life. What we all had in common was a desire to make every experience count regardless of the cost to our bodies and pocketbooks. To see the raw untamed parts of the world before they’re paved over, and to push ourselves physically and mentally to prove that our breaking point is really much further than we thought––that and a wicked need to kite pretty much all the time.

A guy called from California who wished he could go but insisted he was too old and offered his son in his stead. Another guy explained that Sarah Palin was evil and brilliant and wanted to see her home state. The stories flooded in by phone and email and I spent a few marvelous weeks getting to know some of this county’s most interesting kiters. Finally, a guy named Tyler emailed from Salt Lake City, Utah. He had the right combination of skills and attitude and a week later he was signed into servitude at my Wilderness Camp of Endless Work and Kiting. Tyler didn’t know if he would like fishing and I didn’t know if I would like my new life-long commitment but we both loved kiting and that alone kept our nerves from shattering in the lead up to the season.

June rolled around and after putting on KiteFest in Homer, Alaska I flew from Anchorage to King Salmon at the base of the Alaska Peninsula, then on to Pilot Point on the Ugashik River by small plane. Although Anchorage is no small town and bears the brunt of the classic joke ‘you can see Alaska from Anchorage,’ five minutes by plane in any direction produces wilderness of the purest variety. This is one of the reasons I love Alaska. Most of the land is so gnarled by massive mountains, shredded by wild rivers and enrobed in steely blue glaciers that modern America couldn’t get a foothold there even it wanted to.

Flying from King Salmon to Pilot Point and my new fish camp was a smoothy of dread and delight. I was up to my neck in debt and commitment, two things I hated with a vengeance, and had no idea what I would find at the end of the flight. As the cloudy sky became partly sunny and the smoking volcanoes of the Aleutian Range became visible to the south, I began to breath a little easier. Below the plane was an endless carpet of treeless tundra studded with thousands of lakes and braided by rivers that would soon be swollen with salmon. Most importantly, nowhere were there any roads or towns and already wind was riffling the surface of the lakes.

With my father in tow for moral support, we learned the lay of the land and made the cabin our own. We righted my boats, affixed outboard engines, mended nets, repaired the outhouse and started to meet the handful of other fishermen as they slowly trickled in for the season. When Tyler arrived a few days later, the wind began to blow and our minds turned from work to kiting.

With 6-knot currents ripping in the bay and nets starting to be stretched for early-run salmon, we decided to explore the lakes behind the cabin. Jumping on Big Red, my 1984 three-wheeler, we charged inland on an old trail to see what we could find. The wind was honking 25 mph from the northwest, we had our 9m kites and small boards; all we needed was some water. Cresting a low ridge we saw what looked like a big lake shimmering clear and shallow to the south. We grabbed our gear and ran toward the lake through spongy tundra and wild flowers. Climbing a low fin of land we finally stood at the edge of the lake. At our feet was a perfect sandy beach covered in wolf and bear tracks with acres of waist-deep and flawlessly flat water just beyond. We had arrived. Not just to the lake, but to a culminating point in our lives, when things couldn’t get better and the quality of that moment would prevent things from ever getting worse. After a year of anticipation, it was safe to say that we now officially liked fish camp.

Needless to say, we tore it up. My board sang as I sliced the butter in the lee of a peninsula and Tyler boosted over flat tundra-covered islands. The water was warm, mountains filled the background and the wind was blowing 25 mph, gusting to 26. I practiced my board taps on the shore and realized the tundra was so soft that getting spanked onshore was about as punishing as being drug across a field of mattresses covered in carpet. We pushed even harder.

We had seen pro kiters in videos strap into their boards and launch right off the sand in offshore winds but we had never experienced those conditions ourselves. Here we had it in spades. I climbed a five-foot burm and saddled up. I yanked the bar and dove the kite and was immediately flying, sailing gloriously out of control over 10, 20, 30 feet of lake before I landed, butt-checked then rode away hooting with delight. Forget the pros and all those videos, we were living the dream right then and there. And when the fish started to come in, we would be getting paid to do it too.

The end of June came and went and the tundra and rivers rioted with life under 20 hours of sun per day. The red salmon flooded into the river and we formed a routine of fishing all day, then kiting until the sun went down at 11 PM. Some days we caught 6,000 pounds of fish and though we thought it might kill us, we were comforted by the recently announced price of 95 cents per pound and a simple routine that was our lives: fish, kite, sauna, eat, sleep, repeat.

Before the summer ended, we had logged 30-40 kite session in 60 days, learned some new tricks and caught a hell of a lot of fish. We were tired but grins were perpetually plastered on our faces.

There was just one thing left to do. Since I had started kiting I had always had the inexplicable fantasy of kiteboarding around fishermen–jumping some buoys, rail sliding some cork lines, tear up some boat wakes, etc. Although we hadn’t had one session in the bay where all the fishing takes place, the day was shaping up just fine, the current was mellow, the wind was up but light and the fishermen were lounging around in their boats without a lot to do. Tyler and I geared up right there on the beach in front of the cabin and took to the water on our 14m kites. We shot upriver and while Tyler sprayed the boats to the cheers of skippers and their crew, I was on a mission to rail slide a net and jump some buoys. I skimmed the coast heading downwind fast, carving through the moored skiffs like slalom gates. A friend and his crew were tied off at the end of their net and started cheering as I came in fast. About 100 feet out the wind backed off and I started to loose speed. With the tide flooding, I found myself up current of a net and the very real possibility of sinking and getting stuck in the net right in front of my friends was starting to become apparent. As I approached I dove the kite and edged as hard as I could. The kite’s wingtip skimmed the ducking crew and with that last little bit of pull I ollied, barely clearing the net. Everyone cheered and I body drug back to shore, glad to have fulfilled my fantasy and lived to tell about it.

Traveler is the owner of Desert Wind Kiteboarding and a F-One certified dealer. He is also the co-organizer fo the Kitefest in Alaska.

The dealer locator map will display only F-One dealers in the Americas: United States including Hawaii, Alaska and Puerto Rico, Mexico, Caribbeans islands, all Central American countries all the way down to Peru. For dealer inquiries, use this email contact info@f-onekites.us. For more information about F-One presence in other part of the world, please visit www.f-onekites.com

Hosted by Big Blue Unlimited, the Turks & Caicos F-One distributor.

2011 FEBRUARY 22-28 2011 KiteWEEK with JULIAN HOSP

Pro kiteboarder Julian Hosp (F-One International Team) will be back in the Turks & Caicos to host a Big Blue Unlimited/ F-One  KiteWEEK.

The 6 day camp will take place in the last week of February 2011 from 22nd – 28th and will be only open to 6 guests. Book NOW. Cost not including accommodation or flights will be $1200 per person.

He will be bringing the latest 2011 F-One Bandits for all to try.

CONTACT BIG BLUE ASAP FOR MORE INFO TO BOOK YOUR SPOT.

Big Blue Unlimited
Leeward Marina
Providenciales
Turks & Caicos Islands
Tel. 649 946 5034 or 649 231 6455
Fax number 649 946 5033
info@bigblueunlimited.com
www.bigblueunlimited.com

Take advantage of this perfect high end summer package that you have been waiting for. BANDIT III + any twin tips or bamboo surf at 15% off!! Stock and sizes are limited so don’t wait! Contact your local F-One dealer today!

Come and try the Source, the first dedicated kite for Stand Up Boarding, with Ocean Extreme Sports and Boardsports.

Florida: The demo will take at place Matazas Inlet,  from 5 pm till dark, weather/wind permitting..
For more info contact Ocean Extreme Sports at 1-866-790-surf.

Bay Area: The demo will take in Alameda, both days, from 11am.
For more info contact Boardsports at 415-385-1224

Source: Traveler Terpening (Desert Wind Kiteboarding)

Both on the water and snow, kite sports in Alaska have never been bigger, friendlier or more organized.

This amazing growth is due to the nonstop work and dedication of kiters all over the state. These kiters have launched their own festivals, organizations and websites and have collectively created the increasingly well-known Alaska kite scene.

The Anchorage crew have been pushing the snowkite scene with some amazing expeditions to far flung glaciers and valleys brimming with snow, solitude and wind. Meanwhile the Valdez guys are pushing harder than ever and turning out some sick videos showcasing their freestyle prowess. The kiters of Southeast are kicking off their own scenes and we can’t wait to see where they go with it. Down in Homer this last year’s snowkiting season was a little less than ideal but that didn’t stop the local crew. They stayed in the water late last fall and were some of the first in the water with the snow flurries this spring. Elsewhere in Alaska – even in some of the most remote places like Kodiak, Nunivak Island and Unalaska – kiters are somehow getting gear and tearing it up. In short, it’s been a wonderful and eventful season for the Alaska kite scene and we can’t wait to see where we are this time next year!

Here are some current events from the Alaska kite scene:

This March the Thompson Pass Snowkite Festival took over Valdez once again. The event went off without a hitch and everyone had a great time learning from the pros, trying new gear and exploring the area’s amazing terrain. Booze, live music and demo gear rounded out the event nicely. For more information, check out http://alaskakiteadventures.com/Alaska_Kite_Adventures/AKA_Albums/Pages/TPSKF_2010.html

Earlier in the year, Traveler Terpening, of KiteSurf Alaska, launched Desert Wind Kiteboarding where he winters in Flagstaff, Arizona. He taught kitesports all winter and spring and has been selling gear regionally and around the country. Traveler made quick work of his newly acquired PASA (Professional Air Sport Association) instructor certification and took on about 30 new students. His free weekend kite clinic were a big hit and students traveled from around the state to get their first taste of kiting!

Now that the summer is rolling around, Alaskans are once again looking forward to the third annual KiteFest Alaska in Homer. The event will be held June 4-6 and will feature classes and clinics for beginners through intermediate riders. We will also put on competitions such as a 25m kite-pump-up contest and a down wind race. At night we will host a movie night with some of the latest kite videos, BBQs, kiter dinner (at Homer’s own kiter-owned restaurant – Cosmic Kitchen), gear raffles, parties and free food.

KiteFest Alaska is a unique event because it’s organized by a local not for profit kite organization called KiteSurf Alaska. Each year the event is put on by a crew of dedicated volunteers, some of whom are PASA certified instructors. These selfless kite sports advocates work hard all week to teach participants about kiting and promote the sport in Alaska. Perhaps the most unique feature of the event is that every activity, class and competition is free with a donation to KiteSurf Alaska. The spirit of the event has always been one of learning, camaraderie and tearing it up on the water, all without the polluting influence of money. While kites and gear are sold, traded and given away, we feel our event has a special vibe all its own. Participants come ready to learn, share and have fun. Is kiting really about anything else?

Without the gracious support of our sponsors, the event could not happen. Thank’s in particular to F–One Kiteboarding for believing in us from day one and their commitment to kiteboarding in Alaska!