I think I'm getting the dreaded "buggy pilots hunch" It's taking longer and longer to fully straighten out as I rise from the bug.

Mark flagged me down when I was flying his 8.6m Reactor 2013 on Saturday and said, "You know, you are hitting the perfect speeds to try a deadman's turn..." I have never even really tried one before at my local beach. He gave me a quick rundown of how it should go, and I took off to build up some speed and give it a try. I was out in front of Mark and dived the kite down and around behind me and holy moly the pull is like nothing I have ever felt from a kite! I had so much speed going into the turn, and I kept the kite smooth and low and actually pulled it off on my very first attempt. Mark saw so he can vouch I practiced a few more times down the beach by the water tower before heading back up to kitefort to try it in front of a crowd. I must have done it twenty times once I pulled the first one. They are right, once you get the feel for it, it is so much easier.

P.S. I don't remember who, but I think it was 3shot that got a bit of GoPro footage of one of them I pulled close to camp. Hoping that gets thrown into a JIBE video. I can trade you footage I have of Markite taking a dunk with his Phantom Too bad nobody got film of when he almost took out those two old ladies!

Yeah, man, you were popping those bad boys out like crazy there towards the end. I personally witnessed 4 of them. That was awesome.

Also man, I'm sorry i left without saying bye. I was running way behind as it was, and I knew you were going to be deadmanning for a while I was super pumped riding with you and Itay, man. I didn't get any deadman footage of ya, but I got some other stuff. I'll try to get it up inside the week (or it'll never get up).

Oh, and when Itay pulled my tired ass aside and said, "hey man, you gotta run down to the tower and back, it's outta this world..." I wasn't going to go, but I rallied and went. The beach was deserted except for that wedding, and the wind had turned 100% steady onshore 10mph, and the sand was solid and reliable. It ended up being easily the best run of my life and I was able to catch some nice smooth floaty airs over and over with the 15m Speed3. I landed almost every single one of them, and it was sort of my first time catching air on purpose at speed... I'm glad I went Mission accomplished.

Yeah, Itay and myself spent a lot of time cruising between camp and the plover water tower. It was such a stress free stretch of deserted beach. There were literally two or three people between the wedding and water tower.

Once again... Man I feel like I missed some good stuff the other days... I'm SO jealous you pulled off a deadman, Demo. I guess I did accomplish 1/2 of my to do list though.

Demo, were you able to get a speedo to clock your mph?

Yes Demo. I got some on vid

Yah, the late day Saturday had really sweet wind heading south and again I was taking people for tandems and the speed was perfect and I knew it was the right zone for Errol to give it a go if he was willing. I was keeping back to give him room to find a clean space and like a pro he pulled it off fast and smooth the first try. Following behind I wish I had footage of all the fist pumping and yells coming from Errol- really awesome. A quick close pass for a high five between us and we stopped to discuss giving a few more goes to develop the sense of right speed and angle etc. For me the little bonus was watching on his 2nd and 3rd attempts that weren't quite so successful, but one ended with Errol nailing one of those deep tidal streams with a big explosion of water.
yes, he's got the move figured out, next one to do it is you Spence!
.....and the two ladies I made duck and cover ...... My bad I apologized and they were cool with it and I had to arrange a date night with them to make up for it:D

saturday was nice, i had to jet just as it opened up, and indeed the long runs are the best!
love 'em. scored a full round as the tide opened a bit as the crowds gave way.

everybody progresses on JI! great spot , good breeze ..all you guys were steppin up!

and dave actually got on the water!

Soliver, I didn't have any GPS on board, but Mark and I made several trips to the south tower and back pacing together and his GPS read 37.5mph. We were both running into the same problem where as soon as we would get to the 35-36 mark we would get overpowered and start getting pulled sideways a bit as the kite adjusted to the apparent wind. That is now the fastest I have been so far.

On Thursday when we had that side on breeze, I was on Dave's 10m Speed 4 and was really cooking down wind, but I was the only one really running full on downwind, so I kept having to stop for people crossing in front of me. The lines were nearly slack and I was easily doing 30mph with the kite way out in front of me, so I really felt I had a ton of headroom to possibly break 40mph if I went a bit farther upwind to start the run. Just the feeling that I had so much more headroom under the hood was pretty impressive though. That was a very technical day because of how side shore the wind was.

Quote: Originally posted by PHREERIDER

and dave actually got on the water!

It was a really nice short session on the water friday eve when Dave and I came down to the southern park to surf with you and Chris. I was so nice and boostie for jumps that I wish i had come down a little earlier afternoon. We squeezed in a little time before the sun was starting to go down, the wind dropping off quick and the tide covering Dave's sandals and creeping up on the rest of our gear on shore.

I was telling a few of you that the next morning I went back for a hike with Fiona and a bunch of guys fishing that spot said he caught an 8 foot Bull shark that eve after we finished surfing and another local told me that stretch of water between southern Jekyll and Cumberland island has the highest population of sharks on the east coast including some hammerheads - did we jump the shark?
It was great, glad I went out.

Tried to go out saturday late day on the main beach but the wind was all over the beach and as i walked out into the water there was less and less and 100 ft offshore the kite was getting tippy just to keep it flying so no go but it was excellent riding squeezing out the last bit of daylight and breeze before the last of us were packing up in the dark by the kite fort.

the tide calls me ! and its time to go. reading the tides and current is how its done on the back side.
glad you guys came and got a taste. most outflow channels have deep heavily populated shark holes...with the fishing and shore bait the nursery for baby sharks is good.

its hard to convey the "GO NOW " and missing the slack tide time and current switch is the sweetest for offshore.
and dave did well despite the sharks!