Session 3 - Kite Power, El Gouna

Wind - max about 16knots
Kite - Ozone C4 10m
Board - Xenon Rayo tried and tested now by 2 French guys who love it too!
Time on water - about 3 hours

I was really pleasantly surprised by the set up at El Gouna, from what I had read about it on the net and in magazine's it really didn't sound like something that I would enjoy; and to be honest in the height of the season I can imagine it would be a painful place to be. Seems as always the French and English people are the only ones with any manners on the water as the others have a blatant disregard for any form of rights of way. Ah well, it added to the challenge and made sure that I learned how to control where I was going and what I was doing with my kite so, as always, happy days!!

I am a little upset that the "easy re-launch" of the C4 is a little bit falsely marketed, it is very easy to re-launch but NOT in less than 15 knots in the case of the 10m!! I guess it is my fault for loving flying in light wind.

As sessions go there was not a huge amount to write home about although I had a great time. I worked on my turns and my position on the board, making sure that I looked where I was going and turned my shoulders and hips round to face that direction, concentrating on placing more weight on my back foot and also managing to go downwind more to get speed when required. I have moved my hands more into the centre of the bar (something I was not taught to do originally but has really helped) and just moving the kite as and when to get upwind more. It was a simple session and yet I came in after three hours of lagoon into deep water kiting with a fair bit of chop the further you got out, shattered and happy.

I am trying to focus my attentions on as a specific task to make sure that I progress so, wind permitting, I hope to have mastered fluid turns by the end of this week so I can continuously travel and then move on to switching to toe side and back by the time I leave Safaga.

I am kiting with a french lady called Elise and Phillipe is the man who runs the kite trips, he is a great coach and seems to know the area really well and all the different clubs that we can go to! More on him as part of the accomadation later on!!

A few more pics for you to look at!

Enjoy xx

Almost finished the first batch of suncream so looks like I will have to invest in some local eygptian stuff, which to be honest is probably better anyway! I stocked up on betadine and fucidin which is awesome, fucidin is like the magic healing cream and the cut on my foot is slowly healing up nicely regardless of the fact that I spend the whole day packing it full with sand and salt water!