Playing hide and seek with my kitesurfing mojo - Part 1

by Emilie Marx
(Part 1/4)

I couldn’t say precisely when the drama took place.
I think the first effects were felt when I published my last story.

The wind’s been on, we’ve had some nice swell too and I’ve -totally willingly- missed out on very good sessions –with the crowd getting worried about my car’s disappearance at the kitesurfing spot.
It used to be there so often I was frequently asked at what point I was simply putting up a tent there…

I was asked if I was ill… I wasn’t… -or was I?
I thought of putting up a sign at the spot:

“Lost kitesurfing mojo. Reward if found.”

Every single kiter has ups and down I guess.
We all experience days where we’re just not into it, or simply “fuck up days” where the only thing to do is pack up and go home….
But this time was neither of these: I would rig, tack twice and get back in, asking myself why I had bothered pumping up my kite at the first place…
No taste for it.

I’ve wondered if the weather had had its toll on my motivation: it’s been cold lately -in a Caribbean way…

I remember that kitesurfing was losing some of its attraction to me already in Sydney during winter time.
We all have this postal card picture of Australia being blessed by a never ending summer: surf, kangaroos and BBQ on the beach. We imagine Sydney as this city where everyone hangs out in boardies…
It turns out to be true –which is certainly why Sydney’s one of the most enjoyable cities in the world (half naked surfers everywhere!) – but only eight months out of the year.
Not a bad average for sure, the thing is, they don’t really mention it in the holiday brochure but fact is that Sydney’s absolutely freezing during winter.

The water drops to some 15°, the southerly wind has a feel of ice (it comes directly from the south pole) and one must have a fair bit of motivation to get into a sealed wetsuit and feel like the Michelin guy to get in the water….

Some mornings, the sand on the beach would be so frozen it felt like walking on rock.
I do remember then thinking some days “okay, I might give it a miss”….

One of my early morning winter kite sessions in Sydney… It felt cold just looking at it!

But I’d still go most of the time, in spite of the cold….
I’d wake up at five o’clock to be down south for the sunrise and get an hour of kite before work, in gusty freezing and perfectly horrible wind.
Man, I was keen…
I was unstoppable, lol.
Didn’t matter the conditions, I’d just do it.

Funny, I just remembered this guy in Australia that I would see randomly up and down the coast of New South Whale.
Hazards made it so that whenever our paths crossed, the conditions were perfectly ridiculous.
Ridiculous as “the one front of the season that looks like a bloody hurricane”…

Whenever we met, there’d be very few of us on the water and I’d generally fly a stupidly small size kite -borrowed especially for the occasion.
Southerlies and storms in general can be incredibly strong in Sydney (I’ve seen some kick the city so hardly one could have gone out with a tea towel!) and I only ever met him when the conditions were at the limit of still being kitable.

A fifty knots day in Boat Harbour

We must have seen each other less than ten times in the course of two years and a half I reckon; we never spoke other than friendly greetings, until that one day he came up to me and said (through the sound of the cranking wind):
“Tell me, how come I only ever see you when it’s blowing forty knots?”

I must have been in a cheeky mood that day, cause I replied: “A three meter kite is all I have…”
He opened his eyes wide: “Seriously?”
I replied as loud as I could: “Yes, seriously… It’s a real pain in the neck, I never get to ride. Actually, you get to see me the only times I go…”
He looked at me shocked for few seconds before repeating –loud enough so I could hear him-: “A three metre kite is all you have?”
As he was listening to the sentence coming out of his own mouth and being sucked by the wind, he started smiling.

If we had been in South Africa, may be I would have had a minimum of credibility…
Unless it’s my car packed with gear up to the ceiling, parked few metres further, that gave me away…

We both started laughing in the same time… - And it’s that day I realized some jokes could only be got by kitesurfers…

This picture was taken the same day as the 50 knots photo… This blown away tent stuck on this sign amused us very much!

I added:
“I reckon we must actually have met other times than when it’s the end of the world, but you couldn’t recognize me without the three meter kite”

Or may be one simply pays more attention to other people when there are only few of them….
We were four keen penguins on the beach that day.
The cloud ceiling was dark and low, the wind freezing, horribly gusty, so strong one could get a natural exfoliation sitting on the beach (the kind of day where you can get buried in less than ten minutes just by lying down!); rain was pouring on and off, some of us had even got static electricity shocks from the bar!
One had to be seriously keen to get out in this.

We were a little hardcore bunch that would only ever meet when the weather was at the edge.
Strong, cold, ugly, we didn’t care.
We would have rigged a wind sock if we had had to.

To read the second part of “Playing hide and seek with my kitesurfing mojo”