Session 5 - Tobia Island, Soma Bay (ish) and then down winder to get home!

Wind - max 30 knots
Kite - started on 10m then moved onto 7m with wind increase
Water - choppy / wave to 1m
Time on water - about 3.5 hours

Wow, the best session yet in a way for me or should I say the most challenging!

Tobia is a really small island in the Red Sea, about the same size as a football pitch and with nothing on it apart for me and the guys that I am kiting with! We arrived to the club at 9am (at menaville) and we took a zodiac with all our kit to the island across the choppy water, sun shining and the wind blowing. Phillippe convinced the wind was dropping convinced me that I would be under powered on my 7m so I "manned up" and took out my 10m! Ha ha well hooray for the depower on these kites, I spent about an hour on the 10m and then realised that I really had no control any more and although my arse is not small, it still wasn't posing a good enough brake for me to stop! SO I swapped for the 7m, every time I use this kite I fall further in love with it!! HA HA yes I am fully aware that it is just a kite! I spent 2 hours going back and forth surfing waves and chop and then heading back downwind to do it all over again! It was heaven!!!

Now I won't pretend that this session didnt have it's issues, with balls for me comes mistakes and I must have lost my board about 15 times in the 2 hours, so not only did I have a great session I am now fully accomplished at body dragging for miles at a time to get my board back! I am officially 50% salt water now!

So after 2 hours of hammering myself into the ground I decided to come in and get a glass of water!! (well bottle to be honest!) It is then that Philippe explains that they have decided to do a "downwinder" all the way back to the hotel, which I can hazard a guess at being about a mile and a half...... "do you want to join us Becky".......ermmmm hell yes!! So off they go with me in tow pootling too slowly at the back. This has been the hardest thing I have had to do yet to be honest, it goes against everything I have been "conditioned to do" ie GET UPWIND!!! So for me going downwind proved harder than i ever though especially in high wind and choppy / wavey seas!! Ofcourse, I lost my board a further few times and swallowed yet more sea water, growled at myself alot and got cross that what should in theory should be a relatively easy task was proving hard. My legs were tired but I refused point blank to let that win. I eventually made it through the choppiest part of the journey to find that within the bay there was MUCH less wind so i came to a stop!! All the others were on 9 - 11m kites and there is me on a 7m! Oh but no I am not done! Colyn taught me better than that!! Depower fully off and this is when months of low wind kiting came to my rescue! Figure of 8 after figure of 8 and I arrive at the beach with a smile on my face; only to be greeted open armed by Phillippe who honestly admitted that he didn't think I was going to make it! Oh how he has alot to learn about my stubborn Brunner attitude!

Anyway that was the end of the kiting day for me, my legs and back; in fact all of me just aches. Fighting with 30knots of wind for 3 hours was enough for me today, especially when the forecast for tomorrow looks awesome. We are headed back to Intercontintental tomorrow as the other guys have not being there yet and to be honest I really enjoyed it there, so session 6 looks awesome too!!

Mastered turning now too ha!