Did someone mention kiteboarding?

Last Sunday was nice and sunny. The temperature even went up to 63 degrees. It was above Jack's threshold, 62, so he hoped to go kiting when the wind came up.

On the way to 3rd, I quizzed him to see if he brought all of his kiting gears.

A handful of the usual suspects was hanging out at 3rd, because most of the locals were still enjoying the snow in the mountains. We got to 3rd a little after noon, and there was no trace of wind. The water was especially glassy.

We let the dogs play and swim, while we waited. We enjoyed the nice spring weather so much, even though the airport weather reports kept reminding us it was calm - that was when they didn't bother telling how many miles per hour the wind speed was.

Around 3 PM, Jack and Ray pumped up their beautiful brand new North Fuse 14 meters when they saw the textures appeared on the water. But for a while, all they could do were taking a lot of pictures of the kites, and chatting about the new features of this model.

Ray called the airport every 5 minutes to check for the condition there, and sometimes he complained that people were calling too often, because he couldn't get through. Yeah, we could see why.

People came by and took off, because it was too calm here. Around 4, Ray said: "Oh, now I don't know what to do, should I pack it?" I was very encouraging, "no, it's getting a little more windy, I think you should wait until 4:30." I must have said what he wanted to hear, because he stayed.

Around 4:30, the wind did come up! Jack and Ray raced to get changed. Jeff, our coastguard and friend, stopped by to say hi. We were so happy to see him, because he was our lifesaver when we were out kiting.

Before leaving the car, Jack and I checked to make sure he brought all the gears: helmet, gloves, harness, booties, board, bar, kite and sunglasses. There is something about first time out in the season, because you tend to leave something out. I bundled up and walked up to the north end with the guys.

The kiting was uneventful, except Jack had to come in once to adjust his board straps as they were too tight. I was taking a lot of pictures and videos with my cute Sony camera when I slipped in the mud. My camera fell in the mud, oh crap. While telling myself how stupid it was not to watch my steps, I tried to wipe the camera with the little napkins I had. It still worked, but just needed to be cleaned some more.

It wasn't like me not to have mishaps in a nearly perfect day. Luckily, Jack was super mellow after a good kiting day - first day of the season - and he patiently cleaned my camera with wet toilet paper.