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Ok, so we’re assuming that you’ve already had a couple of kitesurfing lessons, that you’ve flown a powerkite on the beach, and maybe you’ve done a bit of body-dragging. So now it’s time for the exciting bit: time to get yourself down to the water and ready to take those first few tentative steps towards becoming a kitesurfer extraordinaire!

The main thing to remember is that everyone has been there – we’ve all had that first session when you’re looking warily up at that kite in the sky with your heart racing, and the truth is that it is nerve racking – but the great thing about kitesurfing is that it really does just get easier, so step up and enjoy it!

Choose the right day

The main ingredient for a successful first session is picking your moment.  Here are a few essential things to consider that will help ensure you’re up and riding trouble free before the day’s out:

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There’s only so long a beach girl can survive Japanese mountain life. A year was the limit for me.

I was thrown into the middle of Japan when I first moved there for work 6 years ago. In the literal sense, the town next to me held a belly button festival every year as evidence to its central placement on Japan’s main island, Honshu. I pulled through thanks to rock river jumps, canyoning, hiking and snowboarding, but being the beach baby I am Japan’s waves were calling me.

12 months into my working holiday I set off from the mountains and toward the black sandy beaches of Ichinomiya, Chiba, to experience the Japanese surf scene. It didn’t take long to meet my new neighbors. My 1LDK (=as small as your bathroom) apartment was situated adjacent to a set of six beach-style cottages. The entire block was nicknamed mura by the locals, meaning ‘village’ in Japanese. Residents of mura included surfers who lived there full time, and surfers who came down on the weekends from Tokyo. We were all young, we all loved to surf. Every weekend was a party.

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Nobody was disappointed at Dave & Buster's Sandy Beach Pro, the Hawaiian part of the USBA Body Glove Tour. Surf was between 3-6 feet most of the day, while an enthusiastic crowd watched Brazil's Guilherme Tamega overpower the current world champ, Kauai's Jeff Hubbard, in a close daylong match. Hubbard caught some good early waves which got the crowd screaming at the get go.

During the final heat that lasted about a half hour, it was anybody's guess who would end up winning as the lead went back & forth several times. 18 year old Trevor Kam, a local who surfs Sandy all the time, competed as an amateur but made it into the Pro division final with a $6,000 purse as the prize.

Jeff Hubbard's brother, Dave, won the Drop Knee Pro in a squeaker over Bud Miyamoto, also from Kauai.

I'm especially happy to report that Karla Costa Taylor scored beautifully on an air roll spin and strong combo waves to beat out Claudia Ferrari. Both of these women are from Brazil but call Hawaii home today.

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This month celebrates the 40^th anniversary of one of Australia’s most celebrated surfing magazines. 40 years ago, 40AU cents would have bought you a copy of the inaugural newspaper TRACKS, a black and white surfing publication featuring a sky polluted by industrial smoke on the cover. Who would have known it had anything to do with surfing…? The commemorative edition of the magazine comes with a re-print of the original issue.

Read on into those early pages and TRACKS was a comical yet serious collection of editorials, photos and advertisements reflecting a very anti-authoritarian publishing house of surfers who were hand shaping surfboards, houses, and a political movement within the sub culture.

Somehow many of these ideals were lost and surfing has progressed into an elite world fuelled by desire to become the next Kelly Slater. Naturally, the pages of TRACKS have become filled with ads for board shorts that feel better and boards that claim to help you fly higher.

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So, Part 1 hopefully got you on the right beach, on the right day, with the right kite – and you’re now standing by the water screaming: ok, got it! Now what! So here’s how to get safely up on your board and properly kitesurfing...

The preparation

You should still be holding your board in your upwind hand and have your kite fairly low in the window. So:

1) Start making your way out into the water. Hopefully you’re at a nice sandy spot where the beach shelves slowly and you can wade out until you’re about waist deep. Make sure that you’re not pulling on the bar too much – as you head into the water you’ll have less traction on the ground so keep the kite depowered.

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Ze Austrian police, bikers, and the albino duck

So, the day has come, we packed our things, and... oh, wait, that was five days ago.

In fact, the past week has been like one big roller-coaster. First, our car was transformed from a normal city-style SUV into a bad-ass Fishmobile (see pictures). We love it so much that we decided to take pictures of it wherever it went.

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Chasing Summer, or Swells?

I’ve come to realize that Japan’s seasons are difficult to adjust to. The hottest and longest Japanese summer to date was recorded this year and even the east coast with her usually friendly sea breezes was no escape from the heat. And then it was all over in a day. Sometime in early October, the summer switch was set to off, autumn on. I experienced this first hand, surfing quite comfortably in bikinis on a stinking hot morning only to be rugged up in a thick jacket and putting a beanie on my kid the next.

Japan’s weather is weird like that.

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As of today, boys and girls, the xwaters.com fish has its own Facebook profile and can't wait to become your friend :)

You can join us here for regular updates on what we're up to, friends of TheFish specials, and much more!!!

As with most sports where kit doesn’t last a lifetime, there is a healthy market in second hand kitesurfing kites and boards.  The important thing is to know your stuff and not come home with the kitesurfing equivalent of a Betamax video recorder...

Second hand kites

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When I tell people I am living and sailing on a boat in the Caribbean, their eyebrows raise and questions arise. They are curious about a whole bunch of stuff, but the most important thing they want to know is whether my partner and I are rich. When the answer is “no” or “I wish”, the mystery remains: “How can you keep doing this?”

 The author and her partner Mark at work "in the office"

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Surf Expo is a large international water sports and apparel trade show held twice each year in Orlando, Florida in the USA.  It provides an opportunity for manufacturers/distributers to connect with retailers and show off merchandise available for this year.   This time they reported  6276 retailers attended the show, along with 4887 exhibitor attendees, 219 media guests and 128 industry guests. Retail representation included 47 states and 46 countries.   I have gone to the September show since the late 1990's as kitesurfing concerns usually exhibited there.  This was the first January show that I have attended in large measure due to the major standup paddleboard (SUP) presence advertised at this event.  So, here's a look at some of the booths at the show with a focus on standup gear.

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Hello all friends of TheFish!

As you might have noticed, something happened last night, and it wasn't just Easter :)

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Sailing in the Eastern Caribbean is fun, especially when you can “pick” your weather windows to go where you want. That is easier to do with your own catamaran with less of a time frame than when you charter a catamaran for a week or two week holiday. Nevertheless, the islands in the Eastern Caribbean lay relatively close to each other, maximum a day sail away, offering a multitude of great destinations and options. The size of the catamaran, the skill of the sailors, flexibility, schedule and the weather will decide how fast you go and where you end up.

There are a few things to note when you plan a sailing trip in the Eastern Caribbean. One of them is “the sailing season”. From November until June, it is high season in the Caribbean, on shore and on the water. Many tourists escape the winter in their own country, prices go up, beaches can get crowded and harbors fill with (charter) boats. It is busier everywhere, but the climate is wonderful and the sea refreshing. The trade winds mostly come out of the northeast and are stronger than in the summer (15-20 knots). This can make a longer crossing less comfortable. The seas are consequently bigger and will come out of the north frequently due to cold fronts originating in Canada and the States. The biggest disadvantage of this phenomenon is that a lot of beautiful harbors become very uncomfortable with a swell rolling in from that, unprotected, direction.

The other season is “hurricane season” from June until November, with August and September known to have the most potential. The winds are lighter (10-15 knots), typically out of the southeast with no north swell running anymore. Harbors and shores are less crowded, the most magnificent beaches almost deserted. It is hot, however, and the warm ocean doesn’t always provide the desired coolness. The biggest threat, of course, is the possibility of a hurricane. Many of the Eastern Caribbean islands have “hurricane holes”, where you can tuck your catamaran into the mangroves, attach a bunch of lines and deploy all your anchors. The best solution is to spend your summer months cruising within a day sail of safer environments like Grenada, Trinidad, Venezuela or Luperon in the Dominican Republic. Or, totally get out of the hurricane belt.

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Before you get started with kitesurfing, it’s important to note that unlike other sports, such as surfing or windsurfing, you can’t really ‘ease yourself into’ kitesurfing – you can’t simply drop the sail (windsurfing) or ditch the board (surfing) and then just have another go – kite’s are incredibly powerful bits of kit and if you don’t know what you’re doing you can easily find yourself wrapped around a groyne, stuck up a tree, or waking up in hospital wondering what went wrong...

Modern kites really are very safe, but only once you know what you’re doing, and you should never just buy a kite, go to beach, and just ‘give it a go’!  The best advice – even if you’re an accomplished surfer or can land loops on your windsurfer at will – is to take a couple of lessons and get to grips with the controls, how to power the kite up and, most importantly, what to do if everything starts going awry!  At the very least make sure you’re learning with a mate who knows their stuff.

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How to..... backroll

Kitesurfing might be a bit tricky for your first few sessions, but you'll be up and riding, staying upwind, and looking like a seasoned pro after just a month or two.  Compared to windsurfing or surfing, which can take many years to truly master, kiting feels like a bit of a cheat...

So, once you’ve got the basics sorted – launching and landing safely, turning yourself round and staying upwind – it’s on to the tricks!  And there are two tricks that everyone begins with: The basic jump, and the backroll.  Here we’re going to take a look at the backroll....

Choose your moment

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