Filthy West road trip - chasing giants

Just got back from a fantastic road trip, following in the footsteps of Ben Wilson's WA documentary. If you've seen the documentary (check vimeo if you havent); we did the northern part of the trip, heading up about 1200km north of Perth and stopping at some of the best spots I've ever kited.

I'm pretty new to strapless kitesurfing - been riding a Whip for 5 weeks of practice and got a baptism of fire. 2km out riding 4m waves in various reef channels... wow.. Completely changed my perception of kitesurfing. I'm selling the twintip and all kites above 10m, and will add a big wave board to my quiver (the Whip gets very nervous in big surf) and a 6m Evo.

Highlight was a fast breaking 3m 'gnarly' reef break with side offshore winds and sharp shallow reefs welcoming any errors. If you get it wrong: may Lady Luck be with you... But so rewarding when you get it right though: a wave that keeps on and on and on...

Happy to report no shark sightings, but many sea lions, turtles, sting rays, and big mofo lizards (a 2m lizard - WTF?!).

We camped in the bush/seaside every night (billion star hotel) and kitesurfed 5 hours a day. Each of us had a kitemare or 2 but no serious casualties.

One of the best kite trips ever. I'll be forever chasing giants from here on...

[}:)]

good onya mate, forget the twinny and enter the world of risky fun

I'm no freestyle champ but I'm no chump either. I've been twin tipping for 8 years, and at 42 I won't advance my skills much further than they are now. A twin tip screws up my back, the jumps and chop f-ck up my knees, and I'm bored of the tricks that I can do.

Each to their own.

I found a new lease of life in learning to use the power of the wave. I'm pretty ambidextrous so can ride the waves toeside or heelside in both directions, and I'm enjoying learning to tack and improve my footwork, and learning how to use the wave.

WA is flipping beautiful, btw. (But no one should go there. Big sharks etc.)

Fair call. I wasn't directing that statement entirely at you, more just towards the whole "I will only ever ride a surfboard because that's all I want to do" crowd...

Sounds like you got things sussed, keep at it! and really as long as your having fun it's all good!

I know a few kiters that have stopped using the TT due to bung knees ect. Strapless surfing gives a new lease on life.

Stoked for ya champ.

Sir Rowdy
you seem to know it all mate
strapless surfboard riding is what everyone wants to do
its cooler than TT'ing
you know it
those who stick to TT's know it

p.s. - Ill only ever ride surboards (unstrapped)

Glad you had a great time. Were you riding unhooked in the waves as well?

Typical behaviour. Someone who clearly knows what they are doing posts to share their stoke and somebody hijacks the thread to focus on one small line in the post.

Glad you had an awesome trip mate. all forms of riding are awesome and the recent and growing strapless SB zealots makes me just laugh. done the strapless thing hate it. But not saying it is better or worse just doesn't suite my disposition. Strapless can be easier on the knees but used to kill my ankles.

Glad to hear you got the stoke you needed man. Don't doubt what you do just because people need to justify CONTINUALLY what they do. Great to hear you have found another lease on kiting life going strapless man awesome.

"Hi-jack a thread" ... hahahahaha

"get back to the topic".... hahahaha

Gold guys, gold.

Can someone inform me of what we should all be posting about??? Because I don't know what the topic actually is here as there was never a question asked, all he posted was a statement about having a great trip. Thus seeing we are on an internet forum it's open to interpretation as what you would like to post here ;).

But I guess I could have always added another boring post telling him how fantastic it is that he loves kiting unstrapped now and that we should all go hold hands and sing songs down the beach because we ride un-strapped together and it's wayyy better than riding a Twin Tip because those guys are try hard gangstas... But that hardly would have been original or even mildly entertaining would it ;) .

I never thought I would say this, but the wave guys on here come across more whiney, judge-mental and worried about what everyone else is doing than any TT riders I know. So can you please loosen up guys your making us grand-master wave riders look bad!
As much as the Sir posts complete nonsense 90% of the time, he actually says some things that are pretty helpful and makes sense. Although you have to sift through the garbage, he is still more helpful than most other users on this site.

Cheers,

Dave.

Cheers for the positive feedback. I think I can even find some positives from Sir R - its all good.

Main point of the thread was simply to share with the forum what a fantastic trip its been. Great waves, good wind, incredible landscape and wildlife. And it was great to leave the wife and kids behind and spend some quality time with 2 of my best mates.

And yeah; I've moved on from twintip to strapless surfboard. Everyone evolves a little differently in this sport. I'm not slagging off twin tip riders. I used to windsurf and I'm not slagging that off either. We all have a similar passion but exercise it in different ways. I'd extend the same respect and/or assistance to a fellow straplessboard rider that I would to a twin tipper, a windsurfer, or a surfer (even the gay ones that dont wear boardies over their wetsuits. [}:)])

@ Jared: if you're interested in going strapless my advice would be just take them off and go for it. Throw yourself into it. A few hours on the board and you'll have the hang of it - its a steep, fast learning curve. I honestly don't think its as difficult as it looks!

@ Eppo: I used the new 2013 10m Evo a few times now so will post something seperately with my thoughts on it.

Not intentionally... .

I aspire to ride them unhooked. I've practised unhooked on the beach & walking downwind with the kite, and on the twin tip (during downwinders). I've only had 5 weeks strapless though and then threw myself into 3.5m waves on the outside of South Passage at Lancelin. So a baptism of fire - unhooked would have been a recipe for disaster LOL. Although the waves were biggest at Lancelin, it was the one of the easiest spots of the road trip. Some of the other spots were (side) offshore, exposed reefs, a tiny entry/exit point etc.

One of the great things about the sport is there's always more to learn...

PS @craggers: are you an ambidextrous contortionist? Cool

We rented a UTE 4x4, you don't need it for most spots we went to apart from Spot X and possibly Gnaraloo if its been raining (2 1/2 off road). We def needed it for the camping. We brought extra water and a large cool box and typically stocked up every other day. There's lots of little places along the way, so no dramas running out of beer. For cooking we used a Dutch oven; stew on the campfire. My Aussie mate had a proper swag. Other mate bought a $19 kiddie tent at Kmart and a $27 sleeping bag. Used his board bag as a mattress. I brought a $70 tent at Anaconda that was a bitch to set up, and a self inflating mat.

We used 7m 8m 9m and 10m kites, mostly the 8m though.

Had a few kite mares. I dropped my kite in the sink at Gnaraloo, got rolled in a wave, kite inside out and twisted. While trying to relaunch the lines were twisted, so kite loops... A windsurfer (who probably thought this was normal kite saying skills...) went straight across through my lines (on his way out), my chicken loop popped off the hook so now the bar is 6m out of reach. It's offshore wind and wave after wave pounding. Managed to get to my bar, got the kite back up and got it under control with twisted lines, enough to make it back to the little launch beach. Scraped my fins crossing over very shallow reef to add to it all. But still the best kite spot ever. That wave man...

Both my mates were caught out by a thunder cloud that changed good SW wind to proper offshore wind within minutes, at Greenhead. One made it back into the bay ontime, but dropped the kite and had to swim for it. The other didn't make it into the bay but just managed to hold on to a coral head on the outside of the northern head of the bay. Had to drive around to collect him... He could have ditched the kite if he'd missed that reef, but luckily didn't have to.

One of us also dropped the kite I to a big wave on the outside of Lancelin. Wrapped up inside out, kite wouldn't relaunch even with a bit of help from me and my other mate. He spent 45min swimming out there, sea lions popping up around him, trying to wrap up his lines and swim back when his kite suddenly caught wind. So he unravelled what he could and half body dragged back to the bay, half kited back.

No injuries apart from stubbed toes (same mate, repeatedly ). Many bruises, but I've been told that that's the way the body get rid of fear...

Soooo bad... but I think Morocco might have even been worse for me, Keahi as well so I heard hahaha.