Not news anymore, but Kevin Langaree was out on his mystery kite today at Kite Beach, and able to do his usual jumps. I asked his cameraman if he wanted to spill the beans, but he said he liked his job and wanted to keep it.
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Sorry about that last pic, can't seem to get it upright. Anyway, Matt, no problem at Kite Beach, wind direction was perfectly sideshore as the SEaster almost always is there. Occasionally it will go too much SE and gets warm and gusty coming over land, but that is rare. Today the wind blew all day, but only got intense late, with a lull at lunchtime. I did a downwinder from Kite Beach to Haakgat from 1-3, but had to wait a while at Big Bay for the lull to pass. Waves were small so went TT and 9m Pivot for some mellow jumping. Passed the local freestyle competition, but their website is not updated with the results - https://www.facebook.com/SouthAfricanKi ... ationSaka/. Only other interest was two mola-molas north of Big Bay. I love sitting in the water next to them to check them out. I think some folks, seeing their black triangular fin at the surface, might think "shark" but a less threatening fish would be hard to find.
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If there is such a thing, this was a typical SEaster day. All calm in the morning, then about lunch the breeze started at my flat in Milnerton and I could watch the wind advancing northwards along Table Bay to Bloubergstrand. Having missed out on a 7m session yesterday I decided to wait till late and launched at Kite Beach around 5PM, for my regular downwinder to Haakgat, on TT again, but should have been on surfboard as the waves were a bit bigger. Not much of interest along the way, just wonderful to be able to jump whenever I want instead of having to pay careful attention to others around me to avoid a collision or kite tangle. But I did come across a very good wing-foiler north of Big Bay, probably on a 3m wing but really making it work and flying upwind and far out to sea. Forecast for the week looks great and the weekend looks epic for both wind and waves. Anybody wanting truly nuking conditions could head south to Witsands or beyond.
Today was as forecast, with the wind filling in nicely around noon. I took my daughter to the "toilet" beach between Dolphin and Kite Beach so she could do some body-dragging in the ocean for the first time. 7m was perfect for her around 3:00. Later I rode that kite and strapless surfboard, along with two local friends, David and Steph, down to Haakgat. By the time we got down there it was howling, with gusts easily above 30 knots, making it hard for me to handle the 7m, even depowered. The last kilometer was just survival and trying to get down to Holbaai to dump the kite to leash. Yesterday and today a low level cloud layer filled in the Cape Flats up to the edge of Devil's Peak, what the locals call a "black SEaster" because it darkens the southern horizon. Tonight the clouds are blasting past my 10th floor flat at sunset. I have to recover for tomorrow, when I will be at Witsands mid-afternoon, probably needing my 5.5m
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And yet another windy day in Cape Town, indeed where we went down south was extremely windy. Witsands was a little unusual, with the wind more south than SE, making the wind almost onshore. The water was very cold and ice blue and clear, such a beautiful spot to kite, but after about 30 minutes on my 7m I had to quit as the wind was too ferocious for me. Bloubergstrand was presumably its usual self, as shown below. It is worth noting that the wind strengths are far higher than the Windguru and WingAlert forecasts, a matter of inability of the large-scale forecasts to capture the local effects that contribute to the SEaster.
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