18/06/2005 - what summer is supposed to be
Days like today don't happen often - all the time in your childhood summer memories, but rare enough as an adult to think "what a cracking day" at the end of it as you are sun kissed, wind swept and smiley.
It started out looking terrible - sunny as hell but no wind to speak of - great for sunbathing but not for kitesurfing and especially bad for teaching. By midday the mercury had hit 30C and it was baking but still no wind - the prospects of a seabreeze weren't looking fantastic.
Just as our spirits were flagging though, the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight swung past in 6 gleaming spitfires and entertained the entire beach for about 20 minutes by performing formation aerobatics in 60 year old aircraft.
After they departed, doing a fly past about 10 metres off of the water back to Margate, a tickle of sea breeze started to form and the kite surfers started getting itchy feet, debating what the wind would do. Eventually Andrew just grabbed his kite and headed out, leaving the others to follow. About five tacks later, Rick and Simon were out as well and the three of them were entertaining the teenage boys ["gaaawwww look at that"], the old grans ["oh my they certainly go high don't they?"] as well as the rest of the hordes on the street.
Within an hour and a half there were twenty kiters out as well as the students under tuition blizting the fine sea-breeze.
Credit of the day has to go to Ian who shot off down wind to rescue Jaccimo and his board after he lost it and got swept round the corner towards Sea Salter - well done mate and hopefully the life boat crew will aim a little off when they fire a mortar flare to signal a boat rescue next time [he was narrowly missed by the flare casing as it whistled past and hit the water a mere metre away].
< Back to news list |
Digg this article |
Add to Del.icio.us