Seen a couple of issues rear their ugly heads at Maroochydore and Cotton tree over the weekend -
1. Kiter outside of the mouth at cotton tree cant stay upwind and ends up in the middle of the Maroochydore SLS Classic...Literally. They had to delay the start of an event while he got out of the water.
Instead of biting the bullet and doing the walk alot earlier he chose to persist and just got into a worse situation...Had to be asked by the Lifeguards in the IRB more than once to get out of the wau
2. Some k#$b at the cotton tree caravan park beach inside the mouth was trying to teach his missus how to body drag. This was taking place about 5 meters from shore with people including little kids everywhere...The kite went down on more than one occassion very close to others. The iceing on the cake when when he went to help her relaunch.....He didnt want to get his boardies wet so he tried to pick the kite up from the trailing egde and launch it that way...needless to say it didnt work..
In light of the councils recent "survey" I think the last thing we need is this sort of behaviour....I am far from perfect at this game and am in fact still very much a noob but I do know this was not appropriate...Comments..Thoughts
Did you approach any of these idiots and tell em to piss off somewhere safer?. This is what we need to do or we're all gonna suffer when council kicks us off our spot.
If you see anyone doing something daft, tell them to go to north shore to learn!!!!!!!!
as an ex cotton tree kiter I'd be devo if it got banned from that place. It's one of my favourites.
Cotton tree locals.. Get together and get some localism going. Sure you won't be the flavour of the month but as a group telling retards they're being retards wont do any harm.
I stood up to a guy over the weekend and put the points across regarding banning and restrictions at a spot in perth. He actually backed down and said he would do the right thing now someone actually informed him of what the go was. Peoples ignorance should be turned around into facts face to face with the individual involved at the time.
If you sit back and not do anything your just like the person doing it. Everyone is responsible for cleaning up the sport and educating noobs and euro's
Mabe 1 strike and your out. Say something, NICELY as most beginners are just ignorant to the safety issues.In 9 years of kiting Ive only had one wanker, 3 crashes next to my kid and after friendly advice, which was not taken, I'd packed up and was ready to go, so I just pulled his dump valve and drove off.
I saw that girl out of the corner of my eye as I was walking back to the car after a session at Cotton Tree.
A kiter (was it you grillsy) came over to her and let her know that it was unsafe and she should go over to the north shore next time.
I agree we should all protect out sport and fav spots by saying something (nicely at first) when we see unsafe practices with kites.
Yes the Northshore learners pond nice for us learners, Graduation into the channel and mouth from the pond progression when upwind ability improves. Lovin it.
You only need to annoy one beachgoer who has a bit of pull with those in a position of power, mainly council, but also local businesses etc, and things can turn very anti-kiting. Unless the council has a vested interest in seeing the sport continue, they really don't care. Numbers and loud voices are the only hope, as long as things are done with some intelligence. No point sending a nasty "I kite and I vote" email. Show self governance as a group and organise a spokesperson if needed. Don't send the average surfy type in thongs to a council meeting.
Yeah mate it was at melville and we have a politician living across the road, not just for my 3 year old daughter's safety at the time, it was to keep access to a learners kitespot. Funnily enough later that night there was a post, "How do you get water out of your bladders"
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