Day 175 - Learning to Trust the Kite

Fourth day of my birthday week.

The day started the usual way. Coffees, checking work emails and waiting on responses and data to come through. Nothing new yet, so it was straight into birthday surprise number four from the kids. I already had a bit of an idea what it was going to be after yesterday, but the card confirmed it. Day two of kitesurfing lessons.

What I didn’t realise when this all started was how structured kitesurfing lessons are. Day one was fully on the beach learning kite control. Day two was getting into the water. Day three introduces the board and day four is all about riding. So today was my first proper in-water session.

We decided I’d head up on my own for the first hour and Kia and the kids would come later to hang out at the beach and hopefully do some surfing once I finished. But as I walked up, I could already tell the surf wasn’t looking promising. The ocean was pretty flat and the wind didn’t feel overly strong either, which had me wondering how the lesson would even work.

Once I arrived, it was wetsuit time. I had the wetsuit jacket on, impact vest, harness and helmet. Definitely felt a bit more serious than the first lesson. There were a few other students there too. One group was on their fourth lesson and another guy was doing refresher sessions. It was actually really helpful chatting to them because their English was strong and they could explain a few things in different ways. The coaches were great, but sometimes there’s just that slight language barrier where you’re not always 100 percent sure what they mean in technical situations.

We grabbed the kites, bars and lines and headed down to the beach. I unfolded the kite, pumped it up and connected all the lines myself this time, which already felt like progress. Then one of the coaches took me out into the water to start learning how to generate power properly with the kite.

The concept sounds simple until you actually try it. You sharply dive the kite through the wind window to generate a burst of power that drags you through the water. Then you quickly redirect it before it crashes into the ocean. All while you’re getting smashed with water, trying to breathe, trying to stay balanced and trying to remember which way you’re meant to steer.

It’s incredibly technical.

I honestly thought kitesurfing would be more strength-based, but it really isn’t. The harness takes most of the load and your hands are making tiny, light movements on the bar. It’s much more about timing, feel and control than brute force. Once you get a little bit of rhythm going, it feels amazing. The kite powers up, lifts slightly and suddenly you’re flying sideways through the water.

The first hour and a half was unreal. I was getting dragged along the beach, learning how to recover the kite and slowly starting to understand how the power works. Then the wind started to disappear.

That last half hour became a battle just to keep the kite in the sky. It would hover there with no tension, slowly lose lift and collapse into the water. Then I’d spend ages trying to relaunch it, only for it to fall straight back down again. Over and over.

Apparently tomorrow’s forecast looks much better, which is good because lesson three is where I’ll start introducing the board properly. I think we’ll still do a bit more body dragging first to lock in the basics before trying to stand up. Then comes the challenge of trying to get through waves while attached to a giant kite.

After the lesson, I found Kia and the kids on the beach. Emmett had been in the water while Kia and Maddie mostly relaxed on the sand. Nobody was really feeling surfing today with the conditions being pretty average, so we packed things up and headed back.

That’s when I managed to smash my right pinky toe while putting my gear away.

At the time it didn’t seem too bad, but as the afternoon went on it swelled up, turned purple and started feeling very much like I’d broken it. Which should make tomorrow’s lesson interesting considering I’ll need to jam that foot into a kiteboard strap somehow.

The kids weren’t keen on our usual pasta stop today, so we went somewhere different and they got burgers and chips while Kia and I stuck with our safe pasta option. None of us fully trust our stomachs yet after Morocco has been working us over a bit lately.

Back at the apartment, the afternoon slowed right down. The kids played games and did some schoolwork while I kept working on Kia’s website. It’s getting really close now. Just a few final tweaks and it’ll be ready for her to start sharing properly tomorrow to promote her online kinesiology sessions.

Dinner was light because we were all still pretty full from lunch. Kia ducked out and grabbed a few small things and we just hung around together for the evening. Another early night for the kids and honestly, after two hours of getting dragged through the ocean by a kite, I was completely wrecked too.

Pretty excited for tomorrow though. It feels like I’m right on the edge of the part where things either start clicking or completely unravel. We’ll find out soon enough.