Tangles

Angulo inovations, wind public relations and reggae radio stations

noreply@blogger.com (Traig, the Kite-Monkey) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:04:00 +0000

The name Mark Angulo is marinatated in years of admiration amongst us old surf/ wavesailing windsurf and now kitesurf salty ocean crowd. We used to see him when visiting Maui to wavesail there or Jhone's over one of his custom wave shapes at our local beach in Malibu or up at the J/Central Coast or Santa Cruz that a friend had scored. Mark always was innovating and ahead of the curve on what he would throw down in the waves with some wind in his sail. It came as no surprise when my bud Klaus, who is also an old windsurfer and now a die hard kiter started adding Angulo kite board shapes to his board room full of Angulo SUP boards etc. His Angulo SUP is his all time favorite wave board and incorporates some very cool bonzer tech. I tried that one and it certainly impressed me. I was able to test some of his early designs in kiteboards as well and witnessed the early planning of his customs for our very large friend who needs some real interplay of proper rocker, outline and volume to get going in our local flukey Ca winds. The boards just plain worked. He was trying all sorts of crazy rail designs, etc in the early models and came up with some very solid boards and yes they worked in the surf.
I have always been working on the best combinations to get out wave sailing in the light stuff and am gravity challenged myself. We have routinely tested all sorts of large kites and board combos to get the earliest planning. In windsurfing the racing domain breakthroughs in technology in which Angulo was one of the masters, led to more efficient wave boards for the light wind surf application. Lots of us missed some of that as we had traded out our twenty years of windsurfing for the kite boards about 12 years ago. It seemed logical then to keep and eye on what was happening in the kiteboard racing circuits as light wind is what races are often held in and kite tech alone wont get you out and winning races. Some of this tech would have to translate to feeding our wave and wind addictions. Low and behold, it just came to my attention that that old windsurf wave ripper and shaping genius Angulo came up with a series of kitesurf race boards so damn efficient and fast that in the prelims of a recent race they literally ran circles around everything else in the field. The superiority of the designs were so evident that the kitesurf racing board forbid access of the new rockets in the event. This is like a Ferrari showing up at the riding lawn mower race around a formula one circuit. Guarantee there are heaps of shapers out there trying to copy the breakthroughs Angulo came up with and will try to get them into the race circuit tech specs. We all know however that the perfect combo of rocker, fin placement, volume distribution, etc is not something you can copy... Well without a laser scanner and a board to copy anyway So hats off to our hero Mark Angulo. Word is some of the specs from his break through race board has been passed along to a board that you can race and ride waves with... Now does that mean changing out the race fins or... is the shape a hybrid... not putting any pictures on yet but Klaus does have on order and he is going to let me take it for a spin when it comes in.

There have been a bunch of great C Street Ventura wind and wave days during Santa Anna Switch arounds...like today.. Wish i could be there.. as well as just clearing gradient winds up there and of course at the J. Cool to have kite bros to give me the story and vicarious highs of great surf and wind days up north. Was able to get up to County between baby duty and jobs last week for a few hours of heaven, first on the 09 PL tube kite proto which is now far updated to be the new Peter Lynn Fury and then sizing way down as the wind went ballistic to throw up an old six meter Eclipse Kima. The little craigslist quad round tail SOAP surf board I have been surfing in slop down here was the ticket in the up and down slamming gusts and was super possitive off the top and bottom. The thinner board round tail means less early planning but great all around and far better than most strapless rides. The old trusty Surftech Xanadu 5'10 repaired a million times and with it's hundredth set of fins is still the light wind go to till we give Angulos board a whirl and the only strapped boards for those really out of control days are an old step railed Mark Angulo round pin of Klaus's and the old trusty six four underground thruster of yesteryear also with about a bazillion rock and skull induced repairs.

This is the year my wife picks up kitesurfing with our instructor Tom doing the honors this time as teaching your own wife is really not a good idea and hopefully that little fireball Aiden will be up on a board soon as well. The little guy is running around nailing that soccer ball at 18 months and lovin reggae music, blues, rock, or anything else that can get his arms gyrating. Looks like disco is the favorite right now with Parlaments classic tracks giving him a full body contorsions worthy of a crack addict on electro shock therapy.. So basically he dances like dad... Dooohh.. Sarah gets a laugh out of that. Here is a shot of him with the trusty bottle and soccer ball as well as on a sponge at the creek that leads into our old Sycamore Cove Beach lifegaurd headquarters area that painted so many great memories on the gray matter canvas of this mildewed brain.

We were able to take Sarah's mom and step dad up for paragliding flights tandem off of the Santa Barbara mountains during the holidays and it really did give them a huge rush. Some of us take the adrenalin stuff for granted as it has been in our veins since childhood. Nothing beats seeing the grin on loved ones face when they do their first flight off of a mountain under a canopy or do their first run on a kiteboard. A bit of single track for a newbee mountain biker or even a first body surf splash in the ocean for your infant puts the biggest smile on this mug. Sharing the stoke is certainly what it is all about.

Good wind, surf and innovations everyone and hopefully see your out in even lighter winds in the surf sooner than we thought. Spring is just around the corner and with them clearing winds and surf.. YEAAAHAAAA!!!

Ocean Eye, a happy train guy and a few kites in the sky

noreply@blogger.com (Traig, the Kite-Monkey) — Tue, 17 May 2011 03:14:00 +0000

Our old buds Klaus Obermeyer and Michelle started a great organization (Ocean Eye) with one hundred percent profits going to the sea life currently in the most danger and into organizations that won't squander the proceeds. Got to hand it to them, they really know how to help out what we love the most. Good old Mother Ocean. Klaus and M were diving off of Tahiti and shot a beautiful picture of a Gray whale coming up below them. Klaus is of course very well known for his extensive motion picture and still photography work world wide. He had the picture of the surfacing Gray done in paint on canvas and will be selling the beautiful very large paintings for 2500 a pice to raise money for the oceans. The Ocean Eye logo is very cool and like our Happyinsurf guy...very happy.
Got a cal from a very nice fellow who we spoke to years ago at Monkey Air regarding PL twinskin kites and our use teaching with them all over, including off our old teaching boat up at Lake Mohave. Cal had moved to Oregon for a while but the cold chased him back to Mohave so now he was ready for the newest latest greatest Charger from PL. Excited to get an arc going on those fun warm waters again this summer. Vic got his new ten meter from me a few weeks ago and is very happy with it as an all around with his Underground directional. He hopes to head down to San Quintin with the rest of the gang like we did for so many years over the Memorial Day and the other summer holidays with a heap of students and wave sailing clinic attendees in tow.
It was a load of fun taking our eleven month old son Aiden to Travel Town in Griffith Park to see the same 1800 and 1900 trains I was so fond of when I was just a little guy like him. Sarah and I climbed into the cabs and walked all round these timeless pieces of engineering elegance with Aiden pulling levers, playing engineer and just plain old having a great time. When we took him on the train ride just as the park was closing, you would think his grin could light up the world. We took Aiden to our favorite Itallian restaurant in Brentwood after the great day and enjoyed some fantastic vegan pasta and dunked pieces of the soft bread in Aiden's baby food as a special treat for the not so little guy.
Some solid clearing winds came through yesterday and I was able to get down late in the afternoon to launch out in front of Klaus's place and kite with he, Michelle, and some of the crew for a bit. There was not a lot of surf but the PL tube kite once again showed it's fantastic range as the wind went from the higher twenties to the mid teens and pulled me into a few little bowls south of headquarters and in front of K's house. The more someones life plate becomes, the even more significant even a moment in the ocean becomes to balance the spirit and lift ones energy. After the session, Klaus and M took me inside to show me the beautiful new whale painting on the wall. It must be four feet wide by three feet tall. What a masterpiece as the vague outline of the whale comes into sharp relief with the pectoral fin in the changing hughes of the sun dabbled water. Had to stand there and stare at it for a few moments before racing home to the wife and baby for a nice walk out to the gorgeous Pacific Palisades bluffs with Aiden laughing and talking up a storm in his stroller overlooking the alternating color ferris wheel lights on the Santa Monica Peer, headlights on PCH far below and the millions of lights outlining the PV peninsula heading south. We did not get the little guy into bed till ten thirty and he thought he got away with the biggest coo ever. A casting for he, mom and myself this morning, had him trying to sleep in needing the prodding of a good bottle of warm soy milk to get him paddling out the door.
Good winds and here's a few shots of the days adventures.

The Dude Abides

noreply@blogger.com (Traig, the Kite-Monkey) — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 03:41:00 +0000

Suddenly Aiden is ten months old. It's crazy how fast this all has come around. Sarah took a trip to Az with Aiden in tow for a nice week visiting her mom. The little guy is an absolute water bug and daily calls described joyous frolicking, big arms and kicking in the clubs kiddie pool. He suddenly is pulling him self to a standing position as well. A stream of photos showed all and got me thinking about quickly getting Aiden and Sarah on a stand up paddle board asap as well as playing with trainer kites.
The Peter Lynn inflatable kite in my hands here is an eleven meter and has been getting a heap of air time in the last few months. Huge range, a fantastic bottom end and good turning for a flatter kite have kept it up there on a long throw bar. The bridles moved forward have given the kite a great no stall character which makes wave riding in the light stuff easier. Dr Stan Schiller out in Hi has been going in the absolute lightest of conditions on the nine meter proto we sent him and swears by the kite though still having his 10 m PL charger out much of the time as well.
C Street gets the perfect side off winds with the great down the line surf on the Santa Anna switch around days. Last week the forecast looked good for local Topanga and County line. Gregor called a bunch of times from the OR saying local would be good and lets get up there. Something kept telling me not to fall for the old few minute fake out winds locally to lead to skunkage which has haunted us for thirty years of windsurfing and kitesurfing. The gas and time saved to stay local often leads to the bad decision to try to get it locally. After scouting County Line, we raced down to the Slot at Leo to get out. The wind line was solid on the outside but quickly died as soon as I got a hundred meters of shore. Total shift to SE winds in a matter of seconds and splash went the PL tube. Swam it in and it faired the surf no problem. It was three by this point and late to consider the fourty minute drive up to C Street with the road construction and detours adding another fifteen minutes. Sarah had said go for it so the dude abided and shot up to C Street in the little red miata with a couple of boards and a kite cramned in. The wind had been smocking up there all day and there were at least 15 kites when I showed up. By the time I rigged the PL eleven meter tube kite, most the kiters has gotten off the water as the wind was starting to fade from the high twenties and riders had had a full day at this point. Some old buds like Colgate stopped to say high and Steph even launched my kite. All were asking about the stealth kite and asking about Sarah and baby Aiden. It is really hard to get into the water as time flies when talking about my two favorite people. Bayless had seen me drive by while he was checking Magu Beacch and decided to chase me up to C Steet after checking County one more time. Saw him pull up as I was going down the line on about the tenth 200 meter,gorgeous shoulder high wave,since getting in the water about twenty minutes earlier... My cheeks hurt from grinning the smile of the blessed lunatic.
Was initially worried about the high winds with only the eleven meter kite in the car but with its huge range, it worked perfectly in the first few minutes of high winds and the lighter but still very adequate 18 mph average later. You could park it and get two good shmacks out of the lip of the wave and then down loop or top loop the kite to get another two hits. Was testing it with the smaller ninety nine dollar six foot cornflake but wide tailed board I had picked up off of Craig's list. Really amazing upwind on this flatter tube kite but it still can turn people on the beach were telling me later. I was sheeting in like crazy and snap turning it. It is not an Eclipse Kima or even my Griffin Argonaut in the turns but it does have power and upwind those do not. For wave riding I do like faster turning kites, but this one is a great all around. Managed to drop the kite twice in the drink in seeing how low I could get in while on the wave face. The kite re launched in seconds each time and suffered no damage in wave tugs. Hope the production version of this kite comes out very soon for our customers.
Dr Channin called from Co to ask about kites and say that he had some interest from the ski reps up there for our happyinsnow, happyinsurf emblems, shirts, etc. Very cool to get a positive response for a product based on stoke. Just wanting to see happy faces around must be a common thread with us sport nut earth monkeys. Apparently the snow kiting has been epic up in Utah and elsewhere this year.
We had a huge wind day this last week with all meters up and down the coast showing thirties to forty knots. Drove by Topanga to get to the better wind swell and wind that County usually offers. Gregor was there and said it looked heaps better than our local Sunset Beach conditions. Bayless threw a U turn and let me know the meter at Topanga only said 14 mph (later found out T came on the meter the same as C ten minutes later) and it was showing 26 average at Leo and gusting to the mid thirties. The waves were peaking randomly and it was not looking like classic County conditions. Greg Sax was the only one on the beach rigging up and we let him test dummie his Kahuna. He got blown off the water in short order and was going to rig down. I threw up a six meter eclipse Kima that has been aging like a fine wine in the kite cellar confines of my truck's bed. The kite has huge depower and turning like no other. The strapless ninety nine dollar store recycled thruster strapless under foot and plowing over heavy current and walls of white water to reach the outside. On the second run out and about a half mile from shore and not even one hundred yards ahead a gray whale breached with a graceful quarter twist and the white coating of his fins reflecting a brilliant light as he crashed back into the water in my path... WOW... I had seen this many times over the years kiting and windsurfing but distances are generally greater. POW. Up he comes again, must be a juvenile but still the size of a bus and another rotation now just fifty yards and my upwind tack is right at him. BAGOK Chicken snap jibe with eyes over the should taking in the worlds best belly flop of my big gray friend. Stoke through the roof and this smile is not coming off the face as I take the far outside tack and maximise the hypotenuse way up coast to the point and best waves of County Line. Can't wait to talk to the gang on the beach and ask if any saw the whale with me way off the coast. Must have looked like an ant with the small kite size dwarfed by the whale.
You can catch the outside swell at County far off shore with significant ground or big wind swell. Today was no different except the waves were sectioning heavily and you could make sections but all the way through was a tough call. Two hours of this was great and the constant hoots back and forth with Bayless and crowd further lifted my spirits. Finally landed the kite for a moment and a huge gust picked up the 99 buck special and broke a fcs in off on a rock. End of session one. Stoked to race to the truck and call Sarah with the whale story to relive. A fast drive to visit my old buds at Becker surfboards and pick up a new set of fins for the ninety niner...or now one hundred forty nine board. Surf rider was packed with surfers so no session there. Topanga was going off and Sarlo and Ogle had the bowl down south to them selves and were on small kites. Threw on a dry bunch of second had store scrap wetsuit pieces from the truck storage and did the speed rig of the six again after seeing a bit of carnage a fellow had suffered there by rigging to larger and not playing it safe on launch. Bummer is people do have a bit of ego and often over estimate ability and under estimate conditions. Kite surfing is a safe sport. Riders make mistakes and often try to blame the sport rather than themselves as in paragliding. Sarlo and Ogle came in as it looked like the wind was dying down below headquarters and they had tired after a long session. Our good friend cameraman Stewart gave me a launch and met me out there with me on a six and he wound on a twin tip. The waves were fantastic and down the line and we shared them for about two hours of bliss. Smack, smack, smack went the lips with cut backs thrown in to stall for the next vertical section. Stew was doing his big jumps and the usual pro wake board style was there. The wind started to fade toward sunset and we both came in laughing with joy about our fantastic session. He said, the one really smart thing he had done was to call me for kite lessons ten years ago. In the last two weeks he had snow kited fantastic Utah conditions, kited in trunks in Florida, kited some big surf with Mark in Cayucus and this was after a session in Aftrica. Just as we put our deflated kites in our bags four more riders showed up and with them came the wind again. We just looked at each other and smiled that contented smile that says, we had our share of heaven and lets let these guys get it without us taking more of the waves. Sarah said she would love to have dinner accross the street at our favorite Thai restaurant Cholada when she got back from the gym. Janet our baby sitter was good with Aiden, so it was a drive home and a splash into the hundred degree plus jacuzi for twenty minutes, a shower and some sand and salt free clothes to meet my lady for the spice of curry life and to tell stories of our fantastic day.
Sarah got her fist day on the stand up paddle board and we celebrated our first year wedding anniversary last week and things are only looking better. Sarah loved the stand up board and did not fall a single time down at Mothers Beach in Marina Del Ray. David Kramer showed up to help everything go well in her fist lesson and he was a great help. Good friends and a great life in a So Cal spring to say the least. Here's a shot of a few old Peter Lynn alumni around my eleven meter PL tube kite.
Good winds.
Traig, Sarah and AIden

August 2010 to Jan2011 in under a couple hundred words..

noreply@blogger.com (Traig, the Kite-Monkey) — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 03:45:00 +0000

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It has been an exciting four months. Sarah, Aiden and I were able to visit my dad for his 85th in Grass Valley, Sarah's mom and Don for Thanksgiving in Arizona and a heap of other trips and adventures while spending the last month moving to this new apartment in Pacific Palisades just five minutes from Sunset and PCH where occasionally we score a clearing wind with some decent surf. Topanga is just up the highway a few minutes and often gets a good south swell sweeping in to provide some decent waves to share with 300 of your best friends. There are those days where the wind comes on and the down the line riding is fantastic. There was one year we lifeguarded there, Zuma and up at Malibu Surfrider when the State took it over for a summer. It was fun seeing the potential for surf and wind on a daily basis before returning to Leo Carrillo and the Magu coastline. It is fun to be in this area now and to anticipate discovering new coastal trails with Sara on her mountain bike and Aiden in the trailer behind me as well as surfing the local spots. Booked a gig playing a guy in a nice old convertible mustang with a longboard in the passenger seat in a lifestyle gig. We filmed just down the street and surfed under a helicopter in front of some homes last Saturday. We saw one of the residents on his balcony watching the proceedings with a close eye and looked a bit wind blown. As it happens, Sunday while working another commercial the producer asked what i had done the day before. I said, "we filmed some surfing while dropping in on the rocks and lost my wedding ring and tore the nose off of my board but the helicopter shots came out ok". He said.."that was you in front of my house with the helicopter over your head?" Errrrr yeah,so that was you on the balcony hugh? Nice that he had such a great sense of humor and got a good laugh out of it. I was soooooo bummed to have lost my wedding ring Sarah had boughten for me in Kaui. We are planning on heading back over to pick up another at that same little shop next to where we got our wedding license.

Sarah has been working like crazy up in Santa Barbara doing a lot of catalogue shoots and is really booking up a storm. We are taking turns playing with Aiden. Aiden booked his first national Baby's are us add at six months old. We were walking through the agency with him, when an old agent friend said, "hey he is cute, does he have an agent?" Sarah and i looked at each other and said, no..... First casting and bngo. Now it is time to determine if we should get him the sag card or not. The money is going straight into his, extra money to take surf trips while in college fund. He played with the camera and director and had an absolute blast on the shoot. They are soooo good to babies on these shoots. He slept all the way home with a smile on his face. He did a baby catalogue shoot for a swiss manufacturer on the beach at five and a half months and spent the time flirting with the baby girl who was modeling clothes on the towel on the beach beside him. Sarah and i are going to have our hands full to say the least. He is eating solid food and grabbing at all the hands that feed him with a mischieviousness that is oddly familiar.

We took Aiden on a three and a half hour ride in his bike trailer down the boardwalk all the way to Marina Del Ray, the harbor and back. Sarah ran cover on her mountain bike behind Aiden and I. Aiden just loves riding in that trailer. He has done in-numberable rides up Mandevile fire road in tow behind us. Have heaps of pictures on the four G phone but need to figure how to transport the files to this box of transistors.
Vic has been checking in with some great paragliding thermalling to the moon stories from Valley De Bravo down in Mainland Mex. They were entering clouds and base and busting through the top, then just hitting the hard G spiral moves to loose altitude and do it again, while making great cross country distances over Thermal Mesa, the Granite peaks, and all the way back to the lake.
John Bayless and Monica had a great party at their magnificent home with the usual good humor and smiles for all. We followed it with a sunset hike up to the overlook over our Salad Bowl kitesurf launch with a few of Sarah's relatives and a pooch named Jane who also guided us through heaps of tight cactus trails in Arizona. That dog and soon to be graduating from ASU Collin have one heck of a lot of great adventures between them. We gave them a trainer kite for the holiday to put some possible Bay Area and Baja kitesurf action in their future.
John went off for a couple of weeks out in Maui to get some real big wave and very long downwinders on his kiteboard and we are looking forward to some great stories and hopefully a glimpse of his perfect diaries of daily events and locations.

Dave Kramer is doing what he normally does and being prodcutive working every angle of producing, everything. Klaus is shooting a bazillion commercials and creating a billion more while somehow acting like he is just cruising along. Mo is art directing all over the planet and he Fran and their beautiful daughter were spotted on a grassy Malibu hillside rolling and doing rides on daddies feet on a beautiful Ca day. He is mountain biking and getting some surfing and kiting in between film gigs.

Alidad is back running the hand surgery over at USC med and living up in a gorgeous area, not far from the Topanga beach where I saw his SUP board, surfboard and kiteboard loaded FJ parked today.
Anoush is surfing, swimming, kiting and SUPing at Topanga and escaping to Mainland Mex with Hedi whenever he can sneak out of the shouler surgeries and all his patient duties.
Chris Young is moving his County paramedic gig back out toward Malibu with Tim Corliss soon and has a great life surfing and rebuilding a classic home in Ventura, just a few blocks from the great old California Street wave.

AFter thirty some odd years of guardind at Huntington, San Diego but the last fifteen at Leo across the street from our old surf, windsurf and kitesurf wave haunt, and raising his kids there, he has decided to retire and move just up the coast to Camarillo where he can still get down to Leo or up to California street to surf in a matter or thirty minutes.

John Drucker is still one of the head honchos at Leo and with a new baby in his family has cut back a bit on his surf sessions in front of his home at Heavens,. That is a peeling left and right surf break we have been frequenting since junior high located just below StairCase and with the right tide and swell direction can provide great conditions. The State houses are right on the beach and hosted many impromptu surf parties and where we did our dory racing and training for the Taplin lifeguard races back when. We kept the surfskis, dories, paddle boards and surfboards there. I was fortunate enough to live above the area for a while and to hose sit for vacationing lifeguards and rangers over the years of my lifeguarding there. Druker has a place on a beautiful NZ island he and his family visit each year to escape their gorgeous bit of Malibu coastline. Even guys with physics degrees pick a life of lifeguarding in Ca. Then again he has also been the pastor who married half of our old Leo Carrillo lifeguard crew.

Johny Reagan is running the gig at Leo now and it's cool to see a cool headed bud who trained the junior guards along side me using his composure and enforcement experience from up at California Street to keep all the nutters who visit our miles of beaches in line. Been working to get all these guys under a kitesurf kite but they are busy with new kids themselves and are content to paddle out between work and diapers.

Spent some time tracking down old water buds for a surf lifestyle shoot last month and really feel blessed to have so many cool friends. I might not hear from them often and they may not hear from me, but when you touch base, if feels like no time passed at all. Lives get busy and communications infrequent. Stories of surf, life, babies and concern for each one anothers happiness and well being has not waned. It was great to talk to our old favorite lifeguard supervisor of Malibu Coast States Magu unit for so long and great friend Norm Chapman to hear stories of golf and laps swimming now that replace the non stop friends and family surf trips to his favorite Sandy Point surf spot in Baja. We would see him driving in the middle of no where in the middle of the Baja desert on Baja one in the opposite direction. We would stop and ask he and Debbie how the surf had been and in fifteen minutes catch up. Small world on that thin strip of asphalt up and down the Ca/Mexico coastline.

Gordon Gray, one of the first LA City Beach guards, way back when and lifetime friend called to drop a few jokes and see about Sarah, Aiden and myself. He has not changed his daily workout since being our lifeguard boss at Hansen Dam back when we were fifteen years old...but said we were sixteen. He went through La City, County and State and living in Nevada and San Clemente around the year now. Even Clark Merrit, the Solo sport San Carlos marketer and owner of the original County Line Line Shack had some fun things to say.Got to get to SQ and see my old bro and catch some of the best wave sailing waves in the world at my favorite spot. Wow, it really has been an event full four months, even if there was not heaps of time on the water under a kite involved. Life is always exciting, it just comes in different forms these days. Still not going to turn down any kite wave sailing opportunities though... Did not want you to think I have lost it..... Tom Mc G spent some time with our bud Dr Stan Schiller out in Kaui a month or so ago and had mentioned it being a good idea to have him give Sarah some re intro kitesurfing lessons when she was ready.... Hmmmmmm... i REALY like this idea. She is going to rip... and then Aiden will follow suit... Lots of fun vacations in our future, in and out of the water.

It is almost spring and today Greg called to say that he was at County Line and though the wind was coming down in buckets, there were pockets of wind and some whitecaps visible if you drove up the rock and mud covered Deer Creek road to look for it.
We had spent the morning cleaning and were anticipating a few of Sarah's friends to show up at our new home. After a few minutes of hanging out, S said, why don't you go for it and get out in the water? Aiden was having a blast playing with her friends son and the most recent call had the wind line filling in. Filled an old Tide container with warm water to dump down my tattered old wet suit to defrost after the hoped for session and hit the road.

It felt like spring and the wind built from the time of my arrival. The surf was not big but at least there were a few peaks and a bunch of friends on the beach. Helped a bud with a piece of heavily waxed depower line i had squirreled away for a frayed line day and then went out for a good hour and a half of immense pleasure. The water and wind in the face and a strapless and very worn old fish surfboard with the ten Meter Argo over head. Had hoped to use the re bridle point adjusted PL proto inflato 11 meter today but not enough time to experiment and get home. It is early for our usual spring conditions but there is that feeling of green and yellow in the mountains with the crisp smell of cool salt in the air. Threw up a few spring time feeling pictures from our photos here and will toss up some more when I get this not so smart phone to give up it's photo secrets to this mac.
We are very excited to get happyinurf all over the country for the summer season and to see so many of our old friends we have been too busy to spend time with in the last months. Life is really great and Aiden is growing like a spout. The guy just has the best attitude and there is always a smile ready to spread across that baby food covered face of his. IF good attitude were money, he would own a few facebooks.
Good winds and spring is around the corner.
Traig

plywood,epoxy,hacksaw, inlaws and Charger 15m

noreply@blogger.com (Traig, the Kite-Monkey) — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 02:14:00 +0000

We went to Maine to introduce Sarah's relatives to our new baby boy in August along with hitting every store in Maine to show them Aiden in his Happyinsurf.com oneies. There were a few opportunities to go out surfing in Portland with some fun East Coast short period storm surf in front of granpa's house. Unfortunately the closest wind spot was about an hour away. There was my buds 15m PL charger and bar under the 25 pounds of baby clothes in my backpack and I was in high hopes of getting in at least one kitesurf session on this trip.
Upon reaching Deer Island Maine, Sarah, her mom and Aiden kindly agreed to sit in the small rental car in the Deer Island Hardware store parking lot while I did a speed shop for the materials needed to build a plywood twin tip kite board. There were two straps in my back pack so all that was needed was wood, epoxy, hack saw, t bolts, polyurethane waterproof wood treatment, sand paper, a floor mat to be cut up for pads and some contact cement to hold them on. A few hours in grandma's garage later, two completed boards were sitting out in the gorgeous forest on the beach setting to let the urethane dry. One of the boards had way too much rocker secondary to a super fast setting five minute epoxy and the fireplace bricks used for the rocker table. The second board looked just fine with a very wide and flat shape like the boards we used to make for customers for light wind use. WIshed I had a big flat fish surfboard but we say in kitesurfing, "any piece of plywood for a storm"....

With a thousand events each day, the opportunity to catch the intermittent winds with a gap of time would be a challenge. The first shot at such a session with even grandma and husband in tow ended with getting the beach a bit late as the wind was just dying and a simple one run and walk back in at a gorgeous location ensued. Sarah got some nice shots of this spot for me to just think about possibilities for next time. The highway had heaps of cars pulling over to check out kitesurfing for the first time, They witnessed a total wind drop off and leading edge down relaunch. The charger stayed in the air better than any other could of in these no wind drop outs.

A couple of days later Sarah's favorite childhood beach was showing some super gusty and shifty wind rotoring over the pine covered islands upwind. Sarah offered to help but not wanting my wife to suffer the blustery cold and strong conditions, I told her to wait in the car with the camera and I would self launch... Big mistake, as the super shifty and gusty conditions yanked the borrowed inflated kite into some razor sharp rock and muscle shells putting a nice little slice across a cell and putting what looked like curtains on my kitesurfing possibility on this years trip to Maine. I was doing the expletive jig in the wind with my hands in the sky with my clown suit red harness shorts over my wetsuit when I noticed Sarah had come out of the car and was watching my shenanigans. Dooohhh.. If this had been an inflatable all bets would have been off with a shredded bladder as well as casing, Grandma was watching Aiden with her husband and they had a big tennis event they were leading at the local country club in a very short time. I figured driving to the hardware store down a formula one worthy course of narrow serpentine two lane then back to kite, would take more time than we had. Sarah said, lets go for it and I can zip back up to Grandma's house if it is getting late.

Cut to the Sunday holiday, ultra small town general store locals being highly entertained by the parking lot repair show. A strange guy wearing red shorts with a hook over a wetsuit (clearly from California that nut state) put white duct tape on a huge pillow like kite he says he rides under. The locals were probably surprised I did not buy aluminum foil to rap around my head to complete the classic Ca. wacko picture.

The wind was showing 6 to 26 with small direction shifts as our rental cars tires cooled from the warp speed drive back. Sarah said go for it and she would shoot a few pictures and then race up to grandmas to grab Aiden and come back. I launched with Sarah's help and the charger handled the crazy gusts and lulls as I lost a bit of plywood board on the rocks and shells below and above the shallow low tide waters. Sarah had just reached the car for the drive to get Aiden when Grandma with husband Don holding Aiden came zipping down the hill. There was a slight communication breakdown on the time for return. There I sat under a kite about a hundred meters off shore.... Game, set, match, this kiter and the image of kite surfing just did an elaborate dive into the slow cooker..

The wind was all over the place and the wind smoothing effects of a good directional would have been nice, however it was all overshadowed by the absolutely gorgeous environment I was so lucky to be kitesurfing in and the smile on Sarah's face actually seeing her favorite beach kitesurfed. A few more runs to soak up the grandeur and it was time to head in The next day was to dawn with smooth wind from a far better direction and a better looking launch a little hike from the prior days rock garden. Schedule wasn't up for it but know where to go on next years visit with the different directions and maybe even a fish surfboard shipped over there to get some waves and wind in Portland.

Maine is not exactly a kitesurfing destination but that Peter Lynn Charger tucked under the baby stuff sure did add to the fun. Who knows, maybe next year Sarah will have taken up the sport and will want to do a few runs in her home waters and I will be taking the pictures. You can just tell by the look on Aiden's face while watching the kite in the air the first time, that he can't wait to fly one. Come on dad, where's that .001 meter kite for me... What do you mean, wait till I'm nine and can work with plywood? We'll talk about it buddy..

Here are some shots from Sarah's lens in Deer Island Maine with the borrowed 15 m charger and navigator bar over the glued up pieces of plywood left at grandma's garage in Maine.

White sharks, Sunset Beach, Topanga Beach LA, kitesurfing gray suit buds

noreply@blogger.com (Traig, the Kite-Monkey) — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 03:54:00 +0000

It was about a month ago or so when our bud, renowned Hollywood action commercial director/ photographer Klaus Obermeyer, called to say his girlfriend Michelle had just kitesurfed over what she thought was the submerged back of good sized great white shark just off of his Topanga Beach home. Klaus and Michelle are old kitesurf students of monkeyair.com and real water people, These are not ones to exaggerate. Klaus's business Aero Film is based at Santa Monica airport, so getting a hellicopter with a bud flying it with camera who would also direct Klaus with his boat on the water below by radio, was not a stretch at all. Low and behold Michelle had been correct and there is a group of about five great white sharks, or white pointers that hang about a hundred meters just off the north point of our old Sunset Beach winter kiteing spot and just in front of the popular Gladstones fish restaurant.

The helicopter with his bud directed Klaus in his boat just over the largest of the sharks, they guess is at least 16 feet and also got some shots of one of the twelve footers. The helicopters go up and down the coast at least a couple of days a week and they frequently see this little school of sharks. There is a large daily group of surfers there at Sunset as well as SUP guys paddling around the point. I often just hop off of my strapless board, apparently, in the middle of their club house to adjust my harness and waterproof headset during those lone clearing wind with surf opportunities. Not that our big gray friends frolicking in the functionally more scary filthy local water, are going to do a taste test on this tofu based diet vegan necessarily....butt, maybe I will do quicker water starts and not make it a one tack, way to sea sort of thing after each wave and do two closer to shore tacks again. Nice to see our buds in gray are happyinsurf and we will say hi from a distance and share all the waves they would like. You got all the priority on those tasty little rights next spring bud and I'll keep the eyes open for you. By the way, I am the guy paddling around on the short little fish surfboard up at Topanga and have very low nutritional value for a growing young white pointer like yourself. Cheers Mate...

These are some shots from the helicopter literally just a hundred meters off of the point where sunset meets PCH and they are there quite frequently according to the pilots.
Big smiles and please don't feed the fish...

Salad Bowl fun fest

noreply@blogger.com (Traig, the Kite-Monkey) — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 02:56:00 +0000

Sarah and I did some short late evening trips up the coast for hikes with Aiden in Malibu with the great Cholada Thai food and Baja Cantina food bonus thrown in of course. I was able to score 20 minutes of a dying thermal session with John Bayless and Dave Bonefont one evening and a few runs on a dying Topanga thermal after a couple of those hikes. Heard the wonder stories of great winds Monday at Leo and S gave me the green light to race up to BU at 230 on Tuesday. Hard to keep the foot from stomping the pedal and picking up an speeding ticket from the six hundred sheriffs on the way north, distracted by white caps and having seen the solid mid twenty averages at the Leo sensor on line. I had about an hour to put into the water before the return and the perfect spot was necessary to be efficient.

Leo was lit up and Gregor and some other wnidsurf buds were well powered in the slot. On reaching County, there sat Johnny B and Ronny Boyd waiting for the wind to fill in on the inside and the new guard in the tower to give the ok. I went down and talked with him. He was a highly consciencious new guard and worried about the people on the beach just south of his tower and the other people a good 400 meters down the beac and not sure if that was adequate for a kite launch. Of course it was and he thought it would be ok if I talked to one couple to move north during my launch however if more guys showed it was a not go and of course up walked another kiter who said "so can we launch here or what" and more tourists showed at the beach. The guard said he did not want a bunch of people going out and by the time the fellow ran to his car and came down in his suit it was a no launch for him. Unfortunate but the guard was doing the best job he could with the kiter experience he had accumulated to date. Needing to educate new guards is imperative for the longevity of our launches. WIth the minutes ticking away, my old standby Deer Creek or Salad Bowl would have to suffice. Threw a U turn in the old ford truck and headed north.
Fred was out at Salad Bowl on a larger foil and was having some difficulty on the inside but looked powered well on the outside. The wave at the north point of County had my name on it and wanted to just hang there if it would just fill in. Two other kiters on RRD kites and strapless but small surfboards were launching as well. The wind was dramatically backing off on the inside and the notorious County Line hot air bubble was poised to ruin it. I monkey rock climbed down the pseudo death fall trail and threw up the ten meter Griffin Argonaut with the old fat fish surfboard and immediately realized an advantage over my smaller board comrads in the water. They shloged down on the outside to North beach wind reapearance past the County hot air bubble that had reformed since the earlier good winds at Salad Bowl. It is an evening timing game we have played since the old windsurf wave sailing days. Once the heat at the beach backs off some, usually it will come back on up there though a gamble. Fortunately there was just enough wind for me to play at the point at County till the wind returned in force and a solid hour of fun little waves on the strapless fish ensued. The pinch of three quarters of a mile back up wind to launch was a gorgeous reminder of how beautiful this part of Malibu is with the dramatic clay colored eroded cliffs and still few yellow outposts of mustard fighting the summer temps. When you are no kiting every day and just getting a rare session, each session is just amazing. I landed my kite and watch two more guys kite out of SB to increasing later afternoon winds. Odd how the total kite stoke that once took six hours of wavesailing to achieve only took an hour this time with the few months off with our new baby. We have such a great sport in kitesurfing and this sole session up at my old County Point stomping grounds was just what was needed. John and a bunch of others were standing on the beach south of the County tower as I drove back home to the family and they were obviously setting up for a down wind adventure. I was so excited about the session just lived and jazzed on the possibility of finding time for a downwinder myself one day soon. The excitement of rediscovering the sport is way cool but not to say that three hundred days of kiting a year thing was not living large... You just appreciate it more when you miss it so much. Supposed to visit Sarah's family in Maine again this August and thinking of taking a kite along though not supposed to be a huge kite area. There is some decent surf though and the views are amazing. An email to a kitesurf blog spot there pointed out a few possibilities.. So now the quesion, to take a new proto PL inflato or the new charger 15 as no pump needed and will just borrow an old surfboard from Sarah's nephew? Not a bad problem to have. IF I can finds some spots to kite in Deer Island and Higgins Beach in Maine, that would be unreal. Gotta just love the views from the water of a new spot. That PL twin skin packs down really small. Probably fit it in the diaper bag. Yes, ms airline bagage official, this is just a large infant tent with a complex bar and line set to hold it up. Have a nice day and just ignore that wetsuit and harness.

Great Kiting at County Line

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 16:39:00 +0000

Hey all, County Line was really great on 2 July. Although I had to wait around for about an hour with the wind bouncing around, it finally came on good at 6 pm. Got out an a 12 but could have been on a 9. Had it all to myself for about 45 min and then Dave, who spotted me from his house, came out. Good waves and wind for almost 2 hours - NICE! Only a few others out at Nicholas. Cheers, John

Punta San Carlos Home sweet home....

noreply@blogger.com (Traig, the Kite-Monkey) — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 20:54:00 +0000

An old friend Carlos, from way back in the windsurf wavesailing days gave me a call today as he needed some strap pads for a new surfboard he wants to kitesurf with down at San Carlos this coming weekend. The enthusiasm in his voice was identical to that twenty years ago when we would head down there with stacks of windsurf wavesailing gear, surfboards, mountainbikes and maybe a bag of potatoes to carry us through. The epic waves of San Carlos had us heading down to the desolate arid magical dessert location for any south swell that could possibly impact it's potential, perfect one mile right forming reefs. In-numerable trips started out as a four day and ended up two weeks with food brought in by other surf heads that happened to be heading down. Back then there were only a handful of us wavesailing the point and well before the Eu notification of the best wavesailing spot on the West Coast. Brian Caserio and his wife would be down there ripping it up after a drive from the Central Coast Ca and often on their way back from other great Baja wind and surf spots. Clark, Merritt, Morgan Runyan, Mark Moody, Bob B, Billy Wilson, Scott Richards, and a bunch of other Malibu surf nuts would pile into all forms of semi maintained four by fours for the long drive and nasty dirt road into the greatest escape Baja could offer.

Carlos would say good by to his family and fill up his van in a flash to secure a campsite near the cliffs overlooking the vertical bowl section of the SC wave. You could go for a surf in the morning and a run or bike ride and be sure if there was any heat in the desert, the wind would kick in by noon. The nights were an amazing panorama of stars so bright, you felt like a space traveler. No wonder the old native shawman that lived up on the messa a few thousand feet up built a observation center, He witnessed the arrival of the european scavengers and the introduction of syphilis, small pox, etc. that combined with slave labor would dessimate his tribe. The precious metals pulled from the area are no longer the draw for the gringos and other world travelers but rather the majestic beauty of a simple no frills adventurer getaway to the basic tenants of wave, water and advanced primate.
Clark Merritt, as the rest of us, hoped that this magical spot would not become overcrowded and untenable. He went in with Solo sports and decided the best way to keep the area maintained and open to all was to make sure the business started there would show respect to the local ahito while providing proper sanitation and garbage disposal for those who did the drive to camp or stay in there high end tent camping environment.

So much of my life revolved around any size south swell and saving up the gas money and insurance for the drive down to San Carlos. Remember friends coming to my lifeguard tower in Malibu to tell me a swell was about to hit and the four hours of packing as we staked heaps of boards, masts, tarps, tents, sleeping bags and cans of beans on top of the old truck for a four am start down the next morning. The State and County could find a guard to cover for me. Life was short and a chance at a huge areal on a 15 plus foot face of a wave repeatedly down the line would make up for any hours spent in a nine to five. Sure some of the gang flew down there in private planes to hit the remote strip but all those professionals shared the same credo as those of us limited to land transportaion. It is all about the adventure.

As the years went by, the crowds built up and along came kitesurfing. Now over 300 days semi localy was available and the long drive for sufficient wind to windsurf wavesail was not as necessary. The early trips down with non depowerable kitesurf gear kicked my arse a bit though still had fun. The PL arcs soaked up the gusts and San Carlos was THE destination again. Unfortunately could not take our new students there and south swells at San Quintin and great down winders were always follwed by reflections in my mind of what the conditions would have been like in San Carlos just another four hours drive south. I've broken the suspension arms clean off my truck on the road in as well as seeing a bazillion other hardships of the trips in and out and most importantly of course of the amazing destination itself and those memories skip through the old noggin every day. John Bayless, Stephan Cook, Vic Enright, Strat, and many other kite buds have gone down to San Carlos with me since the kite days began and it is always a stop on the way down to Abreojos and back.

Regardless of road conditions, stories of the unrest and criminal activity along the boarder, San Carlos will always be my spot of choice to get away from the pressures of the day to day and escape into the cool pacific shoulders of an early summer south swell. Tried to paraglide the place once though the wind was a bit strong and hope to soar the mesa some day as well as experience a solstice at the shawman's cave way up that long hike. Archeologic teams spend a lot of time in the area now and Clark has made some significant finds himself to bring them in. The white specked blue lines of wind blown new swells must have mezmorized the locals here in ancient times and the same feelings of peacefull bliss sooth those city shattered nerves for those of us riding the waves there now. Sure it is not the Thurston Howel posh island hotel spot with trade winds, waiters and a botique for the wife but rather a very fulfilling, sort of six hour session, bloody hand, wind dermabrasion experience endured with the assistance of Modello and tylenol for some, taquilla for others and chocolate soy milk for me. No night clubs and maybe it sometimes gets so windy that you fart dust. Saying that sort of thing is even ok in this non yuppie Yosemite. There is some very dusty five year old surf mags in the outhouses but you tend to not read them but rather leave the door of the plywood box open, watching the evening sun set and those laser beam bright stars come while taking in the crisp desert night air and just feeling the promise of tomorrows adventure. There should be a note on those outhouse walls that reads, "don't sit here too long looking at the views or proctological help might be necessitated" Just buy the great photo post card from Clarks lifetime camera lens skills in the memorabilia shop at the top of the camp grounds and next to the customer bar. They rent gear and show movies in their entertainment room if you are a customer there.
Here's to more San Carlos dreaming and new adventures. It would be nice to take the family there but in all honesty, if they don't like roughing it, you are better off at the Hyatt in Maui. This place just calls to a certain kind of person. Problem is, the place is still just screaming in my ear and won't stop.
Good Winds.
Traig

Vivid Surf Story Day Dreams with Sleep Deprivation

noreply@blogger.com (Traig, the Kite-Monkey) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 00:46:00 +0000

There is a distinct direct relation between lack of sleep and vivid daydreams and cat nap dreams of water time memories and exponential augmentation of the theme. Aiden our little ball of recombined galactic dust in infant form, suddenly decided that giving mom and dad four hour respits to try and catch a bit of sleep was too much. Being the drill sergeant of our parent boot camp he is working on a one to two hour schedule of rock concert volume alerts to get us up and moving. Luckily Sarah is far more adept at falling back to sleep as she is doing the lions share with feeding the now not so little guy.
In my semi conscious stumbling to change diaper or 3 am knee bounce to calm a gassy little tummy haze, past sessions blend with recent kitesurfing , surf and paraglide sessions, buds have been cool enough to relate to me, to produce some vivid Timothy Leary type flashes of what a great world we live in for pure fun.
Some of the stories that got me fired up include, a couple of fantastic downwinders with good south swell John Bayless took part in from County Line to Zuma and a few from Corral to Santa Monica with some waves. Wes Matweyew http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXx30odYivA has a great vid of himself jumping trees on coral islands in the Turks and Caicos. Good old Wes has been around the world having a blast kiting and would be great to get him on the happyinsurf.com tangles blog. Morgan Runyan called to congratulate us on the new baby and described a magic day with wind and good south swell up at North Beach Leo/ Heavens, just flying down the line and if I know Mo, getting a few head dips in some barrels and aireals right and left. Talked to Vic Enright and when asked he had stories from about a hundred great paragliding flights here in Malibu and a great trip with Michelle Harmalla down to good old San Quintin with soaring of the sand dunes everymorning along side our buds the pelicans and sea gulls of SQ as well as long downwinders in the waves in the afternoons. The place was desolate as it had been on my last trip down there with fears of south of the border crime and or the economy keeping the kiters away. There has been no crime down there in our old kite stomping grounds to our knowledge and it is kind of sad to think so many waves have gone unridden down there. The memories of fools gold in the sand kicking up off of our land boards tires as we would fly down the six mile beach, weaving, in and out of the shallow waters under our kites after an hour soaring the cliffs under the silent and graceful paraglider wings put a huge smile on my face mid burping Aiden. How many trips down there over the years and experiencing all that magic of so many different beaches with such great friends who also appreciated the beauty, tranquility and excitement of the land and sport mergings. It is sure going to be great to revisit and rediscover these places and so many others in Europe, islands around the world and of course our old favorites just south of the boarder through the eyes of Sarah and Aiden some day. Sure does give me a travel back pack full of day dreaming building blocks to work with and probably puts some funny looks on my face while performing a now automatic infant support drill from commander Aiden Skye Trumbo.

Strapless wavesailors rip North B and Roseark takes on Happyinsurf

noreply@blogger.com (Traig, the Kite-Monkey) — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 06:54:00 +0000

During the three great days of wind and good surf last week apparently three young strapless wavesailors sporting a camera team one day scored some points for our home team. Got a call from one of the head lifeguards with the JG program this morning and he told me about three kids putting on a great show with a good attitude. They were hitting the peak south of our normal tower five spot and getting deep on left barrels and hitting some hard back hand off the lips and even landing a few rail grab strapless airs. Been cool to see that and apparently the gaurds were rotating through in the units to check it out. Nice work guys!! Apparently it was a NZ and AU contingent with maybe one local bloke that could have been Ian Aldridge.

Sarah and I are excited to get our happyininsurf.com art into our favorite soul art shops in LA and Santa Monica. Roseark has been the spot for the cool movie stars and rockers to get their spiritual earth jewelry and accessories for years. Kathy and Rick, always on the cutting edge of fashion, are well known for supporting the local Native American scene and sharing the stoke. Thanks for putting us in the new Santa Monica store guys. Happy belongs there for sure. If you find yourselves in Santa Monica, check us out at Roseark 1111 Montana Ave.

Though this is a surf, kitesurf and adventure sport blog, it would be unfatherly of me not to club all my buds with excess pictures of our new baby and my wife Sarah.. It's just the American way to shoot way too many pictures and think their kid will be the next president or at least on the cover of the next wave sailing magazine which in a lot of ways might be better..So without further adoooo dooo... Here's Aiden and mom at the lap pool yesterday and a display of the Happyinsurf stoked necklaces on display at Roseark.

Now to sell some other boards and other equipment around here to get a used 6 foot firewire dominator to try in the surf strapless with my kites when my hoof heals and Aiden gives me a green light. Wonder if the little guy is already dreaming of six mile downwinders in surf with mom stand up paddlinging alongside with the complementary nice feeding after the last run.
Happy Diapers
Traig

New baby and time to pass the stoke

noreply@blogger.com (Traig, the Kite-Monkey) — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 06:07:00 +0000

Sarah gave birth to our baby boy Aiden Skye Trumbo on the second at 8:59. He weighed 9 pounds 4 ounces and 22.5 inches long. How such a big kid got out of my beautiful wife I will never quite understand. Maybe he overheard the yoga tapes. It was like getting a keg of beer, the beer truck and driver out of the glove box of a smart car. The proportions are just all wrong. She was amazing in enduring the next 18 hours after the midnight check in and three am inducement. Wish the epidural came earlier, but she held out and only punched me a few times.. just kidding.. really. She was great and we even were transferred to the ultimate delivery view room at Cedars. Aiden was born overlooking Beverly Blvd and the Beverly Center with the Hollywood Sign and Griffith Park observatory as back drops. The city lights came up and Aiden decided to come into this world with a grin and was in mom's arms in seconds. What a great moment. It just does not get any better than that. Aiden just put on his casual air of no big deal and got ready for a few days of docs poking prodding, injecting, blood letting and general infant and mother practical joking that is only found at the very best medical centers here and on Mars. The nurses and care were really exceptional and even a few kitesurfing buds wives who are nurses there stopped by to see how Sarah was doing.

It was a whirlwind of a week at the hospital and with S's mom coming to help out. Having a cool mother in law is one of those unbelievable smacks in the face of universal stand up comedy mother in law joke order. She actually was a huge help, cooked and talked about kitesuring in Baja with me for about four minutes one day. It was about kitesurfing less in Baja, but at least it was about kitesurfing and not golf or other do when dead pseudosports for the adrenaline challenged.

Lots of wind around plus calls for lessons, lifeguarding, etc during the last few weeks.. Finally got that xray which confirmed the avulsion fx of fifth metatarsal proximally at the peroneous longus insertion.. Translation... No kitesurfing for six weeks..or biking running... Going to be doing some swimming and try not to move the hoof much. The ortho gave me a velcro boot just like the one I had just given to the homeless shelter. Get the thing and find it actually exacerbates the condition and the duct tape and stiff sandal option actually works better though costs only a few dollars. Got a bunch of the gang to test kites and tell me the stories while rehabing and spending time with Aiden and Sarah.. Rumor is there might just be another size of a certain proto kite heading towards my hood. The team kiteheads will be flying the heck out of it. Still stoked on the Agronaut, Chargers, and Kimas in the truck. Really would like to score a strapped...gasp.... nice waveboard in six foot size with some width and volume to allow that few times a year of the full on strapped in wave session, boosting over sets and hitting the big airs of the lip like the old days before a million of those hit's made 1500 dollar knee braces standard equipment for many of us. No straps and no problems but it is cool once in a while to do all those old school huge airs and critical section, It is a blast to work all the styles and when Aiden is old enough, hope to get him interested in all styles of riding that won't blow his joints apart. We sure are lucky to have a healthy happy baby that actually allowed us to sleep a little this week with only a minimal amount of diaper changes, feedings and requests for a quiver of boards, preschool tuition at a beach side spa and a new quiver of kites. At least that's what I thought he said after the first three days of no sleep in the hospital.

Big South last weekend, wind today, Baby tomorrow?

noreply@blogger.com (Traig, the Kite-Monkey) — Sat, 29 May 2010 07:44:00 +0000

It was 4:48 on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. The P.C.H would be bumper to bumper with folks who only see the ocean and challenge their dermatologists advice for this one holiday a year and cautiously driving their kid stuffed SUV's at 28 mph en route to overcapacity campsites and hotels up north. The weather forecast had confirmed it; the seabreeze had been in the upper twenties at County Line with at least some wind swell and even Topanga was averaging 17mph. The 10 m Griffin argonaut would be perfect with the strapless fish surfboard..
Sarah and I had spent the day at the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica shopping, walking, climbing stairs and anything else we could think of to prompt the little guy to come out into the world without the help of pitocin induced eviction notice. The excitement of his arrival and fun with S, eradicated any frustration of missing the first big south swell and high twenty and above winds up in Bu three days last week. I was able to get exactly one hour in last Friday evening at about six with the tide way to high and just enough surfers at Topanga to limit access to the point break wave in front of County LG headquarters,
I had arrived about five PM last Friday and enjoying the sole session when up at Klaus's house the 10.5 RRD obsession I had sold to him for his girlfriend Michelle popped up.. Funny thing is that either M gained a lot of height and weight or Klaus was under that kite and Michelle was on the beach with wetsuit and harness on but no kite to go. Klaus weighs in at 265 and if he was doing well under that kite, she knew it was way to big for her. It is great when the normal gravitationally challenged, become gravitationally blessed and Newton's physics tosses some good wind their scale defying way. M ran back to the house to get the proper equipment while Klaus enjoyed his good fortune.

Watching the wrist watch, it was time to roll it up after an hour. Michele had put up a 7 m GK trix and was doing well when in came Klaus with a lot of red on the side of his face. He had been doing his sky high jumps and spins when one contorted tweaked board twist put his face and board tip uncomfortably close."Can I go back out?" was what he asked though it came out as "what do you think" HIs board had smacked him next to his eye and though difficult to see through the blood, was obvious to a nearsighted pelican that he needed some stitches. Klaus and M reluctantly walked back to his place to glance in a mirror for himself and returned with some home done tape strips and bandaging to hold the split skin together and he was ready to go out again.. Told my old bud once again that he should just go to the ER and get stitches and the water here is not exactly sterile.....The blurry vision from the blood in his eye and the fortunate abatement of the wind when he went back out got him to the ER at Saint Johns in a few minutes. Three stitches later he was up and filming a commercial in Arroyo Laguna the next day good as new.
So it is a week later and it was almost five with S saying go for it, i'm fine, no baby today. The normal 15minutes to Topaga took about fifty, No way to get to the better wind and at least some local wind swell generated surf up at County and more importantly, not good to be more than a few minutes from Sarah, just in case. Allan Sarlo was just launching his kite and a few other guys were out as well. Time restraints demanded a speed jump into the wetsuit without accidentally flashing the tourist packed PCH, throwing the kite on my back. old strapless fish surfboard under the arm and pumping up the kite in a hydraullic blur. Laid out the lines and was ready to launch in minutes.... The thing about self launching is that you need to be just that much more careful and luckily I paid a bit more attention to my gear though in a rush. Just one strand of spectra holding the chicken loop together at the top of the hoop hidden by the frayed outer layers... DOOOOOHHHHH!! The phone rang in the bag on the beach and first thought, "the water broke???" Nope, it was S's mom thought the phone reception on beach is horribly garbled.. It's Sarahs mother...Oh...now I heard her. With the complexity of tech on phones these days, why can't the other person just get a computer generated voice that says " he would of course normally know who is on line and is very embarrased, but could not make out your voice do to a terrible connection, sand and wind in his ears and a Fox news helicopter hovering ten feet over the beach"? Apparently S's very nice and understandably concerned mother can't get through to S on either home or cell line and worried something might be up. Jogged back up to the truck and called S myself. She called back in a few minutes with an, all is well, having just walked to Starbucks down the street. Pheeeeewww...Now I could dig through the entire truck just to realize that the screwdriver needed to pull of the system that held the chicken loop line, was left at home after assembling some furniture for the babies arrival. What is nice about teaching and showing gear is that there are always a lot of different kite bars in the car. A bit of adjusting, adding pigtails and wala!! The eclispe Kima bar with 20 m lines is on the Monkey Griffin kite and the sun is still up.
The longer throw of the bar was a marked improvement on the kite and worked the charm. Allan and I shared the tiny surf with one windsurfer in front of the County Topanga LG station with the Argonout eating up the big gusts and the big fat board floating through lulls. One hour of this fun and it was time to run back to the truck. Alex Kaminskas and David Kramer pulled over in their cars on the way back from kitesurf sessions of their own to ask about the babies arrival. They were stoked on the happyinsurf.com thermals conveniently sitting in a sand covered lump on my front seat and looking for a new home with a couple of friends.
Allan and the crew were so cool in congratulating S and I on the imminent arrival of our little boy and Dave made a point of mentioning how much fun we were going to have. Wow, Sarah and i are so stoked for all the support of our many friends and family who always have a positive word to share through this new and exciting phase of our lives.
Tom is up in Ventura teaching lessons for us over the holiday. Vic, Bayless, Michelle H, Robby, Paul, etc. are heading down to our old Baja wave sailing, surfing and paragliding stomping grounds and we are contentedly hanging here waiting for junior to arrive and maybe even stop by to say happy B Day to Gregor Vassilev and Paul Hill at their kitesurf B Day party at Topanga State Beach tomorrow. That is unless the little man in S's tummy does not decide to demand a holiday road trip to Cedars Med center for a little outside entertainment.
Ain't life grand?
We think so.

The vicarious and spiritual thrills in life

noreply@blogger.com (Traig, the Kite-Monkey) — Sat, 22 May 2010 18:19:00 +0000

Was working on the new Happyinsurf.com website yesterday with my sister and brother in law who have always been phenomenal help through this life of water,waves, wind and deadlines. My cell phone kept ringing and the emails kept popping up of friends reporting great wind and wave sessions at the beach, viewings of our bud Allidad in his Nissan commercial kitesurfing for Nissan (viewed during the Philli pro football game.), a high level Tibetan Monk with Dr Vasilev and his very kind offering of blessing our baby if he came while the monk was still here and a plethora of calls involving friends who had a day of paragliding, biking, stand up paddling and just enjoying life. The greatest voice of course was Sarah's at home working and telling me about the babies hyjinx in the belly penthouse. He is hanging out as long as possible and ignoring the OB's friendly eviction notice. He is going to come when he is darn ready. Though behind a computer screen, it was a fantastic day of living life and interacting with a everyones adventures second hand.
Gregor and his wife Lisa are both M.D.s and G has been studying the Budhist traditions for many years now with innumerable trips to Asia and even having many Tibetan Monks visit him here, once even going in his racing go carts.. Now those were some funny pictures of robes and burning rubber.. This brought to mind my wonderful experience with Sarah at the Hindu Temple in Kaui recently. We had gone there twice to take in the amazing beauty and meditate while the monks were chanting mantras behind the red curtains. The enormous Lemurian crystal in front of us with the other art felt extra worldly for someone like myself who has not spent the time around such artifacts as my wife has. Having just been wearing shorts on my arrival at the temple, I was obliged to put on a sorang to fit with the rules. So after having been rousted by a friendly but assertive monk apprentice that we were seated on the wrong sides of the temple as there is a girl's and guy's side, figured it was time to walk the grounds and take in the beauty. The visitors we saw in the two days of our visit there were all quite involved in introspection and worship. The monks could be seen walking the amazing grounds beyond the "do not enter this area" sign in their red robes and even swimming in the most amazing sacred pool below the two cascading water falls. I can only say I am very flattered for the mistake but a very nice Indian couple politely asked me if it was ok first, to walk past a small treed area to view a statue and I answered, "I suppose so, we did, so why not"... They then found me a bit later and asked if they could proceed past a small fence and maybe head down towards the monks' area of the pools, etc.. I was in the process of giving them the " I think the keep out sign means we really should not be going there, but you could probably pull it off without anyone chasing you down with a club", when I realized they had somehow mistaken me for a monk.. Yeah, had to be flattered with that. Maybe it was my tattered brown beachbones t shirt and the perfect sarong picked by Sarah for me to wear that had them fooled. I was in hopes it was the deep look of contemplation on my Simian Brow, the errrrrrr intelligence and understanding in my salt and sand crusted eyes or more likely, or the explosive excitement of finally marrying Sarah on the beach that afternoon, that had convinced them I in fact not only had seen the face of the universe but had a weekly golf date.
Sarah came out of her longer meditation session to catch the smirk on my face. Just had to tell her that I was so happy, I could even appear Monkley to those mildly impaired by altitude sickness and a very generous heart. Maybe that couple vicariously felt the peace and energy of my happiest day with the icing of Kauai's surf, sand and energy thrown in.
My old bud Dave Dabiri just called. His flight just landed from China, he had some info for us on nice materials from all over the globe and oh yeah, how is the wind up the coast right now as there are white caps down here on the PCH at the California Grade... Yeah Dave,it is blowing up at Malibu.. Go get it.. There's a DaVinchi exhibit up at the Getty museum today and Grego is having a little ceremony down at his place. Hmmmm, Whatever we don't do, doesn't matter as our friends will fill us in..
It's all fun.
Monk for a day.

Great surf and wind today at County Line

noreply@blogger.com (Traig, the Kite-Monkey) — Sun, 16 May 2010 07:07:00 +0000

I was able to race up to County Line just as most the gang was exiting the water but still leaving about ten kites out. Alidad was ripping up some waves on the ten meter charger with a strapped Underground 5' board. The tide was coming in and would soon ruin the solid six foot sets. Bonked my head on the bike rack on my rush to pull equipment out of the back of the truck and almost KO'd myself on PCH in the process. Strapless 6'4" old trusty underground surfboard that had seen it't day about four years ago but still going good on daily duty and under the 10 m Giffin Argonaut. Depowered the kite as to allow handling gusts in the 25mph range and had an absolute blast. More of flick the kite into first bottom turn and then let sit up and out front as you just surf top to bottom. Had a fantastic couple of hours as the tide slowly killed the surf and put the walls closer to shore so as to allow a couple of hits going left, one big bottom to top hit right and then exit stage left..... Lost the board on my last wave and it found a rock square on the nose, folding the tip a bit. Some five minute epoxy, three ounce cloth and a bit of sanding should put it back on the water again. What a rush driving down the coast after that session just thinking about the waves and an ear to ear smile. When you don't get out as much, you appreciate it that much more. Racing down the coast to meet my wife at her friends Point
Dume party, saw a kite outside of T3 at Leo and what looked like someone on a paddle board assisting. Apparently the paddle boarder came back into the beach at Leo and left the kite. Pulled over to pick up Fred who was walking up PCH with just a board but someone else got him before could U turn. A couple of the gang pulled over in front of me to tell me they had also seen the orange kite and the paddle board. Seemed like another kite with a broken leash drifting. Then came the inevitable two county lifeguard units though State water, one with a jet ski racing up PCH with lights and siren going. Must have gotten a 911 call from some PCH cruiser. Wish State Guards had a 911 connection. The State guys make the mass majority of the kite rescues in this coast section but once off duty and with no emergency call back except for through ranger headquarters up at Sycamore cove, they would have no way of knowing at 7:30 of a pos rescue. Guess is that the paddle boarder was a closing unit of State guard and emergency unit of County was dispatched on kit.e for cell caller. Hopefully people will self rescue and retrieve own kites and let the guards know there is not anyone in harms way out there behind a drifting kite.
Great day overall and stoked to be out there...Speaking of stoke, here is our happyinsurf necklace with the stoke on back and the happy in surf onesies. Sarah and I shot these while in Kaui making it a real working wedding trip. Life sure is fun.

noreply@blogger.com (Traig, the Kite-Monkey) — Sat, 15 May 2010 05:54:00 +0000

A few shots of our Kaui adventure and some friends.

noreply@blogger.com (Traig, the Kite-Monkey) — Fri, 14 May 2010 21:12:00 +0000

A few shot of Dr Stan under his eight meter Peter Lynn Charger he uses pretty much all the time in his Kaui paradise. The turning power and boosting is what he likes about it. The goofy guy in the clown pants is yours truly having one heck of a good time under the Griffon Argonaut. It turns and parks well in the waves. Going to be getting some students on them this year for sure. Just got my first nick in it a few days ago in an initial solo session up at Leo the day after the big blow when landed it on a rock as to land a beginner. Thing about the arcs is any beginner can feel safe flagging it out. Going to be a challenge this year picking between Argonaut, Epic, Ocean Rodeo, Caution and PL for a new bee. Really is an applications issue now. Tom and I hashed it out for an hour on the phone a day ago regarding a new student who is an old surfer but wants to do a lot of snow kiting as well. The ram air Peter Lynn Charger is the obvious initial choice. Then add in size and weight of rider and if he will be using a proper low rocker surfboard and media and beach hype affecting his fun factor post purchase. Can't believe you really need to be a shrink to teach and sell kite gear. Sometimes it is a junior high (my kite is better than your kite) on the beach but, at least we are all having a great time in the process.. Truth is everything is working pretty good these days and the details are making the difference. The charger actually got a great review from the tube kite only mag the other day. They of course did not know how to launch and land a soft kite (very easy) but outside that, sign of the times. The PL tube kite demo I have been experimenting with has proven to me that Pepijin is a real wizard on all kite fronts. Needs some minor mods as mine was an early proto but it really pulls well, turns, relaunches like a charm and did not have a mile long bridles with a one pump, flatter design. Bridles are in the biggest state of flux though. They like to make everything that flys at PL and this is not the first of the tube ideas over there.
Get wet out there!!
Traig

Waves, wind, wife and baby on way

noreply@blogger.com (Traig, the Kite-Monkey) — Tue, 11 May 2010 04:24:00 +0000

It's been a while gang. A lot of waves and wind, soaring thermals, a few crashes and major life changes since my last post. Sarah and I eloped in Kaui and our baby boy is do in a few weeks. No to paragliding, no to motorcycles and yes to a baby finally will keep us together and me as dad and happy. It has been a lot of fun and a real challenge but tenacity finally paid off and did win her hand.
The eight hours a day of sports dropped off precipitously with responsibilities and been working the Happyinsurf.com business along with MonkeyAir and the other jobs. No grumps in the surf lineup or on the slopes is our goal. We developed a happyinsnow aluminum adhesive emblem to back up the joyous happyinsurf one to stick on the paint of your ride. Cool jewelry, baby onesies and adult clothes add to the lineup with more coming out soon. Amazing how much time is spent developing and working on this stuff. Seeing patients as well as teaching the advanced kite wavesailing lessons with Tom teaching our new students and Vic also doing many the last year and a half rounded out the calendar.
Had some amazing days of kitesurfing over the last year in our local Malibu Hood as well as a few great hours in Kaui. That place has phenom wave and wind combos with a nice laid back crew. Strapless square bottom turns under the new Griffin Argonaut ten meter, nailed down what my old AU kiteshop owner bud Lachlan has been telling me all their summer... This kit is a great all arounder. It pivots well without stall unlike many of the D kites, while still offering up great power per size and depower. One kite quiver with a rented fish surfboard over there. Just wish we had the time and a strapped directional for the epic day of surf and wind Sarah and I saw at Tunnels.
We did heaps of great skin diving with the sea turtles coming right up to Sarah's belly to say hi to our little boy. Truly amazing stuff. My old bud Dr Stan Schiller our team riding Peter Lynn charger pilot set us up with a fantastic island gal to wed us in a traditional spiritual Kaui wedding at Ship Wreck Beach. The Hindu temple with it's unbelievably gorgeous waterfalls and pools backed by the green peaks of the highlands was one of our favorite spots. A great wave sailing spot at the base of the canyon it is situated on where the river mouth enters the ocean, gave me a fantastic session while Sarah did a bit of shopping one day. There are a few canyons that appear to have sick paragliding potential. The views would be unbelievable. Everyone over there is just so cool and laid back. Not the high energy fight for every wave energy so prevalent on the other islands when paddling or kiting in the surf. So far, it is certainly the island we would most like to live on.
The world of kitesurfing kites and boards is progressing at a frantic pace. The Kima is still a great kite but Dimitri has taken the design up a bit with different ranges under the Epic logo and a bud under one a couple of days ago gave me a vis on the turning and power potential of that number. The Peter Lynn Charger is absolutely light years higher performance than the previous PL synergy in power per size and turning. It is much stiffer with all the extra cells and higher internal pressure. The kites are on 23 m lines with a set of extensions. Stan is light but basically lives under the little more C shaped charger the majority of the time. Been testing a prototype PeterLynn inflato from Pepijn as he does like to have a kite that covers every possible need. The one I have is not in the final stage but still great performing and the nine pulls well, turns and relaunches well.
My final flight paragliding this year was a spontaneous and rushed flight while looking for another spot to ask S to marry me. Had planed on just dropping off another wing to a bud on the hill and got talked into tossing up a wing. Sometimes you need to listen to that voice in your head. Not being focused and throwing up my wing... not that it took that much talking, got me turning too tight and too low leading to a very bad spin and poor outcome. i am usually the safety guru on the hill and well, really messed up this time as been used to being able to load the heck out of that wing and pull G 's to thermal up once at acceptable safe altitude in so many prior flights. A tight turn, shift in wind and edge of a popping thermal added up to a nice plummet under a spun wing. Thank goodness for overwater maneuvers course to save my cheese. Got to take every second of launching and landing very seriously and not let overconfidence or distraction sneak in. Big oooops on that one and well, so much of me paragliding again, Maybe someday if I have a big life insurance to cover my wife and new baby. Going to really miss the sport It really is quite safe when performed properly. The feeling of lift while thermalling to high altitude in absolute silence above the jaw dropping vistas of the bright mustard and spring time grasses rushing by below alongside the sparkling Pacific will always be locked in my memory. This is a sport for everyone at pretty much any age. Not the cardio of our mountain biking, road biking, running swimming, etc but one that really rewards the senses.
Plan to start posting consistently again and sorry for the time off gang. Sure look forward to introducing you to Sarah and our boy Aiden soon. Look forward to posting some pictures and hearing from all our buds out there living the great outdoor lifestyles.

Three Great days

noreply@blogger.com (Traig, the Kite-Monkey) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 05:43:00 +0000

Happyinsurf.com
Lets all grin when we are in the water!! No need for a grumpy face.

Soft tissue shoulder injuries take time to heal. Been just getting back into the gym and doing light rehab weights. Talked my logical side into taking a break and to allow myself to get back to kiting just a little bit when there in surf and wind.
It was a four hour road bicycle ride in the hills of the beautiful mountains, daydreaming and running into a few paragliding buds at the top of the second long climb up in Little Sycamore. Apparently they had shot up in a real good bit of thermal lift earlyer and were just starting to come down from the adrenaline high. This is a very challenging site to launch, nail the thermals and land at a serpentine road site down on the highway far below with crazy raod racing mortorcyles bulleting by. Helped Vic untagle his bridles after a little off launch bush crash and remembered why DeerMaster, Rod, Vic and crew were such a hoot to hang with. These guys are driven to paraglide. Vic is just recovering from a very bad ankle sprain on landing but was out ther flying anyway.

Road the rewarding gravity induced downhill to PCH via Starbucks for a couple of fruit juices and back down to the house, to find the trees were starting to really do a wind induced limba... Leo Carrillo was averaging 18mph on ikitesurf, so raced up to County Line to be the first one out. It is always heaps more fun when you don't expect the wind to blow. It's like a gift under a Christmas tree that unexplicably showed up in your living room in April. Had the surf and wind for an hour to myself before the gang noticed the beach cameras and one smiling guy out under a kite. It was great hangin with Alidad, Bayless, Alex Kamiskas, Dave and a heck of a lot of new to the area kiters. Wow, what an influx of new faces. The wind swell was showing at the point and long smooth rides were the norm.

After about three hours, it was time to let my shoulder rest and get home to work till two am. What a great day. They were calling for no wind on Sunday so it was working all morning, a soft sand run at Zuma/say hi to old lifeguard buds and then...what the...? am I really seeing stuff move in the trees under this overcast. Johny Regan called from his lifeguard unit near Deer Creek and comented on how great the new south sell looked and said "bummer there is not enough wind for you to kite into it Trumbo as your shoulder won't let you paddle in"..That got me fired up to drive up there and throw up a 12 m GK trix though it looked like a pointless exercise with not a single white cap under the grey skies.

I was really questioning my logic here (is this just a poor as it was cold and not very windy but the waves were epic. Johny had pulled up in the unit with old lifeguard bud Rex walking up. John said, "I've seen you zipping around in this much wind on those arc sort of kites of your Trumbo.You could go in this" He was profetic; amazingly I was well powered and pulled into about twenty perfect butter smooth bowls with nice vertical lips to smack repeatedly as they peeled perfectly off of our lifelong Heavens surfing haunt. Mertin saw how much fun I was having at this sunset sesion from way up on PCH and ran down the trail to join me. With only a couple of surfers way up wind, there was no competition for the waves. The wind would go great for twenty minutes and then lull to sub kiteable for 8. I left after two great hours with Mertin out there on his little 132 chasing the dark water with no caps each time a long gust would come through. Finished off the evening at the gym working my shoulder and wondering how so many of those gym types get by on the mudane repetitivness of jogging on machines and living a no adrenaline and non outdoor sport life...

Today was predicted to be ricktor scale winds and though Disco (Mike) called early and told me to get out there and not miss it, my work first priority had me chugging away till 1:30 and the wind was starting to do the 15 to 35 mph bit. Mike was just driving away from County with a huge wind and wave generated smile on his mug and waved that contented, "told you, the early sesion was the one to get look" He pulled alongside with the window down and just had to say how freaking much fun he just had and was heading back to work stoked.

Got a couple of hours strapless on the nine m GK trix and the 6'4" underground thruster surfboard till it just got crazy with the gusts..You can bump and jump wakeboard stle in this sort of stuff of course but that's not my focus these days. If I'm not working, it would be nice to be having the most fun possible. Time to drive..

Can't wait for that smaller six meter Eclipse Kima to show up. It would have made that session and the later one. Dimitri and Gabe from Eclipse both popped me emails today to say the kites are on the way. Drove down to Topanga in hopes the gustyness for strapless riding would be substantially reduced but it was not to be so. Our bud Allan Sarlo was being filmed by waterman Dave Ogel of Ogelvision at County and there they were again at Topanga. We laughed and I threw up the nine meter GK and underground strapless again.

Fun little waves reeling through the inside but darn if I wasn't WAY overpowered and unable to surf the waves properly.. It can be very frustrating and you are supposed to be out their having fun so.oh well, time to come in with a smile. Just too big of a kite. Everyone else was struggling and unable to throw their rigs till Jamie showed with his strapped in small surfboard and a tiny little kite that he could just huck around...till he also succumed to some gusts on the inside and closed down his session. I went in south of the headquarters and uncerimoniously dunked my kite into the inside drink to keep from dealing with the forty mile per hour gusts from hell screaming through. Klaus was rippin it up and down from his house just north of Topanga and down to the north beach. He was having an absolute blast ripping it up and throwing huge air. On days like this, the extra height and concomitant weight was no issue. He was airborne every other second. Vicarious enjoyment of a session is a great thing in sports.

Dave Ogle was next to his van south of Topanga headquarters as I walked up the beach with the kite floating on the wind under my arm. He gave me a laugh, big cheer and smile as if to say, I know you had fun even though your setup was totaly wrong.

Dave had seen me as a patient in the morning and he had the admirable will power to give his injured muscles a bit of a rest and shoot pictures for the day and stay out of the conditions he and the rest of us crave so darn much. Wow, a patient that actually shows patient compliance on a high wind day with surf.. Will the miracles never end?? While dumping a warm detergent bottle full of Topanga ecoli lousing fresh water over my head, I reflected on just how good life was for us (not the ecoli).

It is easy to focus on everything from relationship, hopes, worries to student loans and coporate taxes and become obsessive on goals while missing the beauty of our lives playing out right there in front of us. Walked across the street shamelessly in a pair of kneeless, oblitereated old levis that a bag person would scoff at with a tattered old shirt that I would never embarass my girlfriend with and walked into my favorite Thai food restaurant Cholada amongst a hoard of tragically hip turned out couples and parties, to sit down alone with a mind full of wonderful images of the day for a fantastic Vegan meal. Thai Spicy actualy was delivered... What a great three days. They are calling for sceaming winds again tomorrow but have a casting way out in the boonies in the middle of the day and working office stuff in the morning. It is worth working to the wee hours to experience life outside of neon fenced human corrals. We all have to copromise but there always are options. It was a weekday and the number of kiters was staggering. Either their investment firms did the Bush belly up or they have figured out, family, work and fun into a really productive model....Good on them!!
Economy Ecshmonomy.. Life is still good. Live it!

How do you like the Fish Lips logo

noreply@blogger.com (Traig, the Kite-Monkey) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 04:22:00 +0000

Here's the simplistic Happy Surfer logo for the Fish Liips/Monkey Lips, MonkeyAir all natural skin care line. This is a shot of Huel Howser...spelling.. interviewing MA this winter at Leo Carrillo State beach. This is our local MonkeyAir haunt and where I spent most of my life lifeguarding, surfing,windsurfing..etc...great times and great people to hang with in the State Parks. We are doing a kitesurfing Monkey
Air booth at the Leo Carrillo Wale festival April 19 for the State Parks.

Have Fun and we will see you at North Beach Leo Carrillo on the 19th of April!!

Been a while but it has been fun.

noreply@blogger.com (Traig, the Kite-Monkey) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 02:24:00 +0000

Wow, it has been ages since I last posted a blog here. A wonderful lady distracted my mind and heart away from many of my regular sports addicions and allowed me to focus on looking into the ways we could help our friends the most through MonkeyAir.com and of course think of ways to possible spend a lot more time with her. Lots of great memories and a good friend for life iregardless of what the future holds. I am one exctremely lucky guy.

It is a very exciting time for kitesurfing now with the imenent release of the new PL kitesurfing kite, the Charger, a lot of great inflatable kites hitting the market and empty beaches in Baja for the summer again with the US toursitos thinking that something really bad might happen if they head down...HINT... we did about ten trips last year with empty beaches, waves and great wind. Our US buds who have homes down there have had no problems. We just zip through the sleeping border towns and enjoy the wonderful Baja hospitality we always have. Keeping a cautious eye is always prudent and we will certainly do so but also listen to what is realy happening and ignore over generated hype.

The kitesurfing, paragliding and surfing in Baja this last year has been fantastic. The fantastic woman in my life did a trip down to San Felipe with us and had heaps of natural talent but as her job literaly does depend on her looks, a fall and a scrape could cost her a booking. A shame as she is a real outdoor beauty lover and has incredible athletic abilities. Vic and Strat booked about eight hours a day of perfect conditions on that particular San Felipe trip and it is odd how you don't even miss the water when you are with the person you want to be with.. Hmmm.it sure was nice... She has found a new love in mountainbiking now. The problem with people who learn quickly is of course the fact that they won't know when they are over their heads. Just got to keep her off of the knarly single track..

Lots of great days through the winter with surf and wind during Santa Anna switch arounds up at C Street and even some winter time thermals here. Was able to test a bunch of different kites with Dimitri Maramenides showing up to hang for a few days this week so we could test out his new line of Eclipse kites. The Kima is the wave kite I have been fiding to be a worldwide absolute wavesailing hit on pretty much every forum and through my grapevine of lifelong wavesailors. This tube kite has a more D shape or delta like but unlike the other deltas we have tested does not show the propensity to stall a turn while still haveing lots of power, huge range and phenomenal turning speed the others we tried just have not had. The gang here tested the nine meter kite in bugger all 12 mph winds and I was able to do some down winders with the amazing ability of this kite to be truly thrown all over the sky and deliver some good grunt. Definately will be selling this kite to my wave customers. The power of the nine is significantly more than say my other sle wave sailing tube favortite, the GK trix. In hopes a 6 and nine meter Eclipse Kima will power my season along side of course the new PL kites, Gk's, O.R's and Cautions. Like to try as many as possible.

Dimitri pulled out the eclipse thruster for us to try and I have to say, though high aspect, the thing turns very, very well though not a snap around it's center like the kima but rather a fast, fast pivot around it's wingtip and then huge acceleration through the window. This is a really great kite and getting a lot of phone calls on this one as well presently. For an all around kite, people will love the thruster. The Nano is a great grunty, beginners and all around ride with big grunt and a bit slower turning than the others with a more bucket shape.

The new Eclipse bar is fantasic in it's abilty to with one hand do a quick release and reset of the mechanism. It is a pioritory metal quick release system that is fantastic. I am not big for the below bar cleat for adjusting the depower but the truth is you never really have to!!! You set the kite up on it's knots and only really ever need to adjust the below cleat for arm length discrepancies. The big metal pivot below the bar actually worked and the kite goes to leash very well when droped. 265 pound Klaus and feather weight girlfriend Michel both tride the Kima and were amazed at is smooth gust absorption, ease of flght and stability. It is an arc in just sitting over your head but it is damn good for an inflatable kite. On twenty meter lines it is an absolute rocket and hard core Peter Lynn Synergy pilot Vic said it is probably the one lei kite that could bring him over to the lei "dark side" snicker....

Dimitri and I had a hoot cruising around and showed him the local sights, and even got him to chase us in my truck during a paragliding thermal run. Great guy with no real ego though one of the best in the world and owner of eclipse kiteboarding.

New to Monkey air will be a page written by docs and health care specialists including myself, that practice solutions to Anti Aging and longevity through natural products and services. Been doing this my whole life and been working with the absolutely best all natural facial and body topical and internal products as extreme sports lifestyles require the ultimate skin and body care. Been doing this my whole life and been working with the absolutely best all natural facial and body topical and internal products as extreme sports lifestyles require the ultimate skin and body care. Look for Fish Lips Naturals that are a long time coming after a life of lifeguarding and sponsorships with petroleum based garabage to put on my skin and wondering "why in the heck women and men pay so much money for such absolutely horrible products to put on their sensitive skin?" If you could not eat it, why are you putting it on your skin. The products we are releasing have more effective natural ingredients in them than anything you will find on the market plus a lack of the toxic ("can you say radiator fluid?...yeah really, they use that in over counter skin cream as a preservative" ) type of ingredients and instead only using natural anti bacterial and antifungals. We even have a no bug body lotion from all naturals we have been also using on pets for a long time with great results. The last few years have brought raving testimonials of these products from around the world and as my sister and brother in- law have been in this with me from the start, I know exactly how great this stuff is. The chemists just told us "the product has way too many great ingredients for any large firm to make and not loose their shirts and don't know how you guys plan to do it." We did and our friends are getting great results. Yeeehaa... Lots of exciting things here for us at MonkeyAir and looking forward to a fantastic summer season of trips and helping our friends stay forever young and happy on the water, in the air, on the mountain bikes ) and in every other outdoor sporting venue.

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Another great San Quintin trip

noreply@blogger.com (Traig, the Kite-Monkey) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 04:35:00 +0000

Eight days of great surfing, daily kitesurfing and paragliding. The beaches were empty and the visuals spectacular with pelicans off of my wingtips and below my feet in the air while watching porpoise play in the waves below. You would follow this up with hours of downwinders in the surf. The Fourth of July was the only day of no wind but fantastic surfing for three hours in the am with just two buds with homes at the point down there. Surfing is a blast without the usual crowds we grew up surfing with around here. Thanks to all our buds that showed, including Pam the Pelican and Peter the Poirpoise. Here's a few shots of John, myself, Tom and his son Jarid who was doing great with his kite lessons and was hard to keep from jumping between sand dunes under the PL kites.

Salad Bowl went OFF!!

noreply@blogger.com (Traig, the Kite-Monkey) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 07:19:00 +0000

Got back from my casting and had planed on a bike ride this morning but the wind was averaging 15knots by 11 am.. Had to race up to see what Mother Nature was giving us. The towers were flying the no kite flags but the north end of County was showing a bit of left over south swell with a new wind swell push from the west and nobody surfing it!!! Mo snuck up behind me on the County overlook and after telling how good Avalons (Salad Bowl) below Deer Creek looked, we raced down to his place below El Matador and droped of his truck so we could have a return vehicle and scored an epic three hour down winder with some great waves at Salad B,County for an hour, Staircase, Harry's house, Honaroos,etc. Drove back up to Salad B to see far more wind and solid nine meter conditions but it was to be the first day of our local Malibu pool to be open for lap swim, so avoided the temptation only to find the pool not open yet do to chemical imablance problems...Doooohhh..... The three hours were cool and I got to do dinner with a funny friend from New York.

Yesterday was perfect 12 m synergy conditions alone at the Slot and worked West to Staircase. Ali, Mo, Billy Wilson on his pole board showed when I was leaving after three hours and proceeded to kite till dark. It is wierd breaking the old habbit of staying out till the wind quits, but have actually been acomplishing a lot when not hanging with my girlfriend, the Pacific Ocean quite as much. snicker....Happy Aniversary to Katherine and Kramer. The get together at the Malibu Cantina was a blast and their kiteing bud from Hi Holly was a lot of fun and hopefully will be along on our next Baja trip with Mike and Sue Flanagan plus the usual motley crew of wave and wind afficionados.

Vic got some good paragliding with Bill in the desert at a well known launch and claims it is to work almost every day of the summer with great launch and landing zones. Early day is a bit too large and can stuff pargagliders over the back so is hang gliding time however later afternoon settles down and is 15K foot thermal wonders. Hard to break away from the good local wind and surf conditions to paraglide inland but might have to do the two hour drive out to hit the spot. The Eagle crew has been heading out there a bunch and scoring it is the rumor.

Have fun everyone.
Traig

6 Days of Baja

noreply@blogger.com (Traig, the Kite-Monkey) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:03:00 +0000

Wind every day for kitesurfing and good paragliding each morning, a bit of surfing with evenings spent in the sand dunes with the gang under a full moon. Beautiful conditions for John B, Paul,a few San Diego kite buds, Mara and myself. A last minute phone call to Paul got him driving M down for her lessons. Thanks Paul.

Mara's kite skills improved dramatically after a session on the land board with the 12m synergy. We took turns landboarding with the combo over the trip and had a ball. Her aptitude for the sport is clearly evident and having spent time in Cozumel with some kite instruction in smooth trades a year ago didn't hurt. The next thing we knew, she was making her transitions with just a few minutes of coaching and getting a few waves while participating on our long down winders. She is our refer to surf instructor, so, figure she has a lot of water skills under her kite harness, scuba tanks,etc. Mara is fluent in Spanish and became our MonkeyAir postergirl for the trip with her fun bubbly attitude and hitting it off with the locals. The beach was basically empty except for our vehicles and 6 mile downwinders with inumerable lip smacks the norm.

What a great trip. Here are some shots we got of Mara and the gang showing a bit of landboarding,the showers at SQ with Fidel and crew, Old Mill restaurant and a shot from the air of the point I was surfing. I got home last night to find some great surf and word of some wind and ten people getting stuck on the outside yesterday with their kites at the slot when the wind died down. Watch for the wind suddenly backing off if out at the slot. Best bet is to stay close to shore at the north end of Nicholas if you are not wave skilled. Have fun. Hope to get you along on our next wave clinic trip down to Baja. Summer is for fun!!

Bike, run paraglide kite. Fun

noreply@blogger.com (Traig, the Kite-Monkey) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:12:00 +0000

Four hours on the road bike pushing canyon hills in the heat Saturday and then just a blip of wind showing. Got a bit of kiting on Thursday and Friday by waiting till the late evening for wind and putting on the running shoes or sand tire feet for the running workouts. Wish the local pool was open for lap swim.

Four paraglide flights yesterday with fantastic thermals booming over Neal's house below the 1350 and cross countries into the mountains south with returns back to the coast to ridgelift to County Line. Neal got so worked up with us hollering at him and flying over his house, that he grabed a bud and raced up to launch to join us in the air. Spiraled into County on one instance to kill all the alititude and found a nice open spot to landin on a Sunday. Anoush was coming out of the water on a surf and we got to trade some great kitesurf stories of the last week with the south swell. The guard in the tower was an old junior guard student of mine and cool with the landing on the beach. Vic and I landed there a second time later in the day and my old bud/LG sup Bo said to not do that one on weekends. He also turned me on to a lap pool in TO while our Bu pool is being repaired. Cool, and will go there today after an oil change and TJ green machine fridge refill.

Good solo session up at Deer Creek after the paraglide with the 12 trix on 20 m lines and the rear adjustment of the bridle making a big difference with added grunt and even more stability for a tube kite. Gary from Ventura showed a bit late and offered to give me a ride back from County to do a downwinder. I took him up on it and realilzed that I could have spent a couple of hours down there as it was just starting to fade there as well. Oh well, the three hours at Deer were great and no complaints. The waves at County were still excessively flooded from high tide then anyway. Need to sell the lightwave board and Surftech McCoy lazer zap with straps and pads to a lighter guy so I can test some other fish. My Xanadu fish is ready to find a new home at a good deal. Might just replace that with the same, however, there is a very cool balsa laminate fish that caught my eye. hmmmm? Only strapless these days and want to experiment with other boards as usual. Been like that experimentning with boards since nine years old and surfboards from garage sales.

Klaus got his new trix 12 here and wants the bridle modded and Bayless and Mo are doing the simple bridle adjustment to test the efficacy of the strings in that configuration. Always surprising to see what a small adjustment will make. Hope everyone out there is having a fun summer. I have a few new syergy kites in here from the shipment last week if anyone needs one as well. 10, 12 and 15.