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Desert Inn at San Quintin
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Date: 08/04/2007
Views: 9
About 5 hours south of the border is this beautiful little hotel on La Playa de Santa Maria.
08/04/2007
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Ocean View
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Date: 08/03/2007
Views: 8
This is the view from our room- pretty spectacular!
08/03/2007
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Driving on the beach
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Date: 08/04/2007
Views: 17
No hauling gear around here- everybody just drives their cars right on the beach.
08/04/2007
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The Crowd
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Date: 08/04/2007
Views: 11
The Cali Kites crew was down for the weekend with a bunch of clients which provided some entertainment. With endless miles of open beach this place could never really get crowded, even with the scores of locals out enjoying the sun.
08/04/2007
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Cabrinha 14m "C" Kite
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Date: 08/04/2007
Views: 10
This is my kite. The wind was pretty light (around 10mph), so I ended up borrowing Roy's 16m version of the same kite for most of the time. We were the only ones flying the old school "C" kites- everybody has switched to the new bow kites which can handle a larger wind range. Ain't nothing wrong with the old ones though!
08/04/2007
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Miles of beach
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Date: 08/05/2007
Views: 9
Driving up the beach you quickly lose the crowds and have miles and miles of beach to yourself.
08/05/2007
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More miles of beach
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Date: 08/05/2007
Views: 10
On Sunday the wind was really light, too light to be able to ride upwind, so we drove way up the beach and did a long down-winder.
08/05/2007
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Pumping up the 16m
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Date: 08/05/2007
Views: 13
Rigging all of the gear takes some time, and when the wind is blowing it always takes too long!
08/05/2007
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Ready to ride
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Date: 08/05/2007
Views: 14
Getting ready to ride, with Roy's kite and Roy's board- thanks Roy!!
08/05/2007
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Getting up
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Date: 08/05/2007
Views: 12
At our local spot, Silver Strand, the surf is so powerful that just getting on the board and riding through the waves can be extremely difficult. Here, it's no problem, and the waves are the perfect size to launch huge airs...
08/05/2007
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Riding
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Date: 08/05/2007
Views: 9
Between sets there are no waves at all- the water is as flat as can be!!
08/05/2007
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More Riding
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Date: 08/05/2007
Views: 9
The wind was so light on Sunday that any attempt to stay upwind resulted in stalling the kite and losing all your speed- that took a little while to get used to.
08/05/2007
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More Riding
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Date: 08/05/2007
Views: 16
One you get some momentum up the "apparent wind" across the kite increases, giving you more lift, which increases your speed and builds more apparent wind over the kite, which increases your speed, etc. etc. The point is that even in light wind you can get going pretty fast once you get started.
08/05/2007
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Wipeout
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Date: 08/05/2007
Views: 8
The light wind and small waves made the perfect environment for trying new tricks, like this totally botched back-roll.
08/05/2007
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Launching off the waves
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Date: 08/05/2007
Views: 8
Jumps today were 5-10 ft. at most, need a little more wind for the monster jumps. But 5-10 ft. was plenty high for me! I still had a couple of pretty hard landings!
08/05/2007
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Kite Down
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Date: 08/05/2007
Views: 9
After doing a back-roll the kite lines are left twisted (since you just did a 360 but the kite did not). To untwist them you can either do a spin in the opposite direction, or you can simply spin the control bar around. If you spin the control bar around you must be sure to spin it ALL THE WAY around- if you only spin it a half turn then the steering is reversed- which means when the kite goes one way and you try to correct, it goes more that way, so you correct harder and it goes even more that way- and then it nose dives and crashes hard. Oops. Sorry Roy... Incidentally, this is why the kite is inflatable- in addition to giving it some structural integrity, it also makes it possible to get it back in the air after it has crashed in the water.
08/05/2007
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Roy
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Date: 08/05/2007
Views: 12
The leading edge bladder on Roy's 20m kite blew out right at the end of the day on Saturday. There wasn't really enough wind for him to ride the 16m on Sunday, but he managed a short down-winder to demonstrate his skills in low-wind riding.
08/05/2007
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Ultimate Baja Mobile
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Date: 08/05/2007
Views: 16
Sweeeet...
08/05/2007
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