We went kite-surfing

Today both Kim and I went kite-surfing for our first time ever : A little indulgence for Lex's birthday. It was great ! It was very tiring too, but we feel like this could be the sport for us. We had our lesson with Mike from Kitethrills. He's a qualified kite-surfing teacher and he won the first prize at the Coolum Beach Kite Festival this year, so we couldn't really go wrong. We went for the two-hour lesson. He started out by explaining beach safety and choosing the right location for kitesurfing. I won't go into the details but basically wind direction should be opposite from swell direction ( water flow ) and it should be as empty as possible. "And don't forget : Never kite between the yellow flags !". One thing that keeps amazing me over here is that Australians like to adhere to the rules. Even the kite-surfers ( who by nature are a bit anti-rules ) try and make life of other beach-participants like surfers and swimmers as easy as possible. In Europe there'd have to be rules for everything, here they just use their common sense and teach people how to behave correctly. I like it, less rules, more common sense : Makes sense to me ! Anyway, so we learned about the different beaches and starting points and wind direction and now comes the fun part : The powerzone ! I can't really explain it but generally the kite will try and fly away from you in the same direction as the wind, however, the more "central" it flies away from you, so not in the edges or high in the air but low in the air and straight in front of you, the more POWER your kite generates ( lift ). This is what you want ! You can feel this effect really well on the smaller kites ( 3 and 4 meters are relatively small but they will still pull you away from your spot in the powerzone ! ) So the trick is to get the kite in the powerwindow, but it will only stay there for a few seconds, then turn it by pulling on one side, back into the powerwindow, so generate traction. After that we learned how to use this powerwindow to let the kite pull us up from a sitting position ( which is the position you will be in when you put on your kiteboard ). After that the last 15 minutes were with a REAL KITE ! It was 7 meters but it packed a lot of power. I even got as far as doing jumps ( all on the beach ofcourse, we never got into the water : That's lesson two ) as high as 2 meters up and about 5 meters far. I didn't want to stretch my luck because the landings can be tough, so I only used about 20% of the kite's power to lift me up in the air. Mike gave me compliments on how fast I learned the skill-set : "You're a natural". Not sure if the compliments were included in the price of the lesson but still it felt good. Kim's still a little unsure about the control of the kite but she loved every moment of it. I think the next step will be the actual kite-surfing, I am sure I'll love the feeling of being in the sea and hanging in the harness, I think it's a bit like sailing but without having to buy a boat. A complete kite-surfing set will cost about 2500-2800 dollars per person, which I think is reasonable considering that after the initial purchase the wind is free. We loved spending the day on the beach being active, it was a real nice day again. Glad we put up loads of suncream because the sun can be burning. The wind keeps things cool but we'll definately be looking to buy some wetsuits for the bluebottles and more importantly the sun. A hat or cap is advised also, to protect against sunstroke. And ofcourse sunglasses, but you don't go anywhere without them here anyway. If you ever get the lucky chance to visit the Sunshine Coast, I definately recommend spending a few dollars on a lesson with Kitethrills.com, they're really good fun and you'll enjoy every moment of it.