Kiteboarding Trip to Florida (part 1)

Four days, 1800 miles,

and an insatiable desire to kite board

Many people would say that I was crazy to do that much driving for so few days kiteboarding.
To me, I would be crazy to pass on such an opportunity. It was around noon on Friday and I had no plans for the weekend.

A friend of mine sent me a text around noon saying he had a place for me to stay in Florida. I did a quick check of the wind forecast and scrambled to throw what I needed in the van. The back area in the van consisted of a cot to sleep tons of gear, and a small bag of clothes. By 1:30 pm, I was heading south.

In January, kiteboarding sessions in North Carolina are few and far between, and we certainly were not taking our students out when chunks of ice were floating around out in the Bogue Sound. It had been almost a week since I returned from La Ventana, Mexico as part of a group kite trip. The fuel inside that drives me to chase the wind had not yet been used up, in fact, it had been replenished. I used that recent experience to carry me the 700 miles from Emerald Isle to Melbourne. I Arrived just before midnight and got caught up with my friend Kel, and then got some sleep.

florida morning

I woke up early, excited to get on the water with my good buddy. We looked at the wind forecast and checked all the areas wind meters and decided we could either wait around in Melbourne to see if the wind direction switched, or we could drive across the state to where the wind looked much better. We both agreed that we had come too far to not go a little bit further.

Fort Desoto

We packed his gear in my van and barreled across the state arriving in the Tampa area around 10. We decided to go to Fort Desoto because it’s amazingly beautiful. One of the most striking features about this place is the sand on the beach. From a distance, the beach looks like snow; it’s so white its crazy!

After walking out on the beach to check the conditions, we grabbed our gear, got into our wetsuits, and set out to set up. In no time, we were both on the water hooting and hollering at each other. There were about 15 other kites on the water and we were engaging with them as we passed them. I like to give a little hoot or holler each time I pass someone, just to keep it exciting. One amazing thing about kiteboarding is it’s such and individualized experience. You are out there in the moment with your own thoughts, but then you see another person passing near you experiencing the same thing in their own way, you engage that person however you do, and then its you and the elements again. It’s truly amazing.

We continued this pattern of excitement for several hours until we were both tired and ready to pack up and head back across the state, which we did. We knew there was to be a full day of kiteboarding to be had on the following day.