An ode to joy!
And I use the word “surfer” broadly, here, as in “kite surfer” but, honestly, feel that strange bunch of oddities is nearer and dearer to the surfer heart than stand-up paddleboarders, goat boaters, foilers and whatever it is that World Surf League President of Content, Media, Storytelling and Transformation Erik “ELo” Logan is straddling.
In my experience, the kite surfer only unfurls her wares when the lineup has become an unruly wind-wipped mess. And then he provides much entertainment with his jumps and loops, bobs and weaves.
Well, one of these “brethren” got swept out to sea over the weekend and let us read of his harrowing tale from the pages of CNN. Let us push our morning slice of leftover rhubarb pie to the side and really dig in here.
Two helicopters, two rescue boats and members of a local police force all jumped into action after a kite surfer was seen drifting out to sea on Thanksgiving near Ocean City, New Jersey.
Turns out, all it took to find the guy was a phone call.
Some 16 hours after three US Coast Guard stations began deploying crews in response to a 911 call about a black-clad surfer getting pushed out by waves, the missing person “called and reported themselves to be safe,” officials of the branch’s 5th District Mid-Atlantic region said Friday.
“The missing kite surfer contacted (Coast Guard) watchstanders to inform them that after his kite malfunctioned, he had cut it free and used the board to paddle ashore and return home,” they said in a news release.
“Kite surfer located!” the Ocean City Police Department posted late Friday on Facebook. “Unaware of rescue efforts, he went about his Thanksgiving.”
Coast Guard and police officials did not release the name of the kite surfer.
Search parties had found a black and white “Ocean Rodeo Cypher 10” kite in the water but did not find the board or missing surfer, the Ocean City Police Department said.
“Cases like this … illustrate the importance of labeling your kayaks, canoes, kite boards and other recreational marine vehicles, so that in the event they are lost, or you are missing, we can reach out to contact you or return it,” said Coast Guard Petty Officer 1st Class Alex Castonguay, a watchstander at the Sector Delaware Bay command center.
What a happy ending and while CNN’s reportage does not state the unnamed kite surfer was discovered in his bed I must assume he was because of all that turkey and rhubarb pie etc. Much tryptophan.
Now, a few questions for you.
Will you label your surfboard with your name, phone number and address? I think it might be a good idea. I think you should ask your shaper to glass all of that important information right on.
And what is your favorite sort of pie?
I’m a rhubarb man through and through but where do you dip your fork?
Duh…hair pie of course.
Pie? Meat and gravy in a suet crust. The baseless pie with a puff pastry top is an abomination. The vid of the kiter (is that the right term?) smashing into a palm tree on a bayside foreshore and then being whisked onwards is horrifying and entrancing.
Ahhh, that kite surfing vid brought back some memories. Whatever we think of VALs surfing, they have nothing on the VALs of kiting. Apart from the learners in this video, almost all were VAL type accidents, (the exceptions being the high flying leaps). At least surfing prevents you, mostly from accessing conditions when the waves are too big. Kiting, on the other hand, provides a level of access to learners with minimal capability.
Coupled with the fact that you have to fork out a minimum of $2k to get on the water and you get an idea of the ‘type’ who take it up. While there is a licensing system, it is basically not policed, and therefore easily circumvented by the clowns who get the basic lessons and then figure they can save money by self-teaching. They’re nuts.
I gave up kiting because I couldn’t handle the number of entitled idiots in the water back in Australia. Ironically, the UAE had a much better system of regulation, which was mostly from those in the industry rather than imposed by government.
Fortunately the ‘international’ airport alongside my local prevents the ‘kite bogans’ approaching me on the days I love best — big, cold, howling onshore with no one out. Down the other end of the beach they run amok and it’s not uncommon to see one tangled in the power lines.
Took my boys a few years ago to a full day at St Kilda to see if they would like to pick it up. They had fun, but 1 day was enough.
Friend from Ulm is a pretty good kite surfer, and I’m sure you know about the Germans kitting in Egypt. Looks like a great time if you can do it.
Anywhoo..we were at the St. Kilda day festival watching lessons and laughed when he told me you never give beginner lessons when it’s hard onshore.(and was fucking hard onshore)
Fun fact: should you ever need to be rescued by the Coast Guard, the taxpayer foots the bill!
I thought cats don’t pay taxes?
I hate labels. I’m not even sure I’m ready to out myself as a surfer yet.
I find that the labels on the inside of clothing to be generally a useful guide as to whether my ‘gentleman’s frame’ might find solace and comfort of embrace within their woven volumes.
This of course is rather déclassé, as the purchase of such pre-made garments is a nasty habit of the feckless Lower Orders. I have fallen on such hard times as to resort to such measures, and am only admitting my predicament here in this hushed booth of anonymity, so as to demonstrate a jolly camaraderie with you plebeian sorts. Wot ho!
I’m going to immediately burn my entire unlabelled quiver – even my customs with ‘for @surfads’ on them as there are three different surfads families on my block alone – and not surf again until new, adequately labelled boards can be shaped.
I’d suggest everyone else does the same too.
It’s the only way to be sure.
But too many questions remain unanswered here. For one thing how was this numbnuts being “pushed out to sea by waves”? Did the waves finally go mad from having the kitesurfing inflicted upon them, and do a 540?
Sounds like he was lost in the outerknown
I’ll come up and burn all my boards in your front yard too, to show solidarity.
Fire Ban, Schmire Ban, eh?
Don’t think anyone would notice in this smoke
Easy on the duck-dive zoom there fella!