Do you surf? There waves here any time there is any serious wind with any west in it.

Sunset, and Upham are the two best pinellas surf spots.

Since the wind was SW, I am betting this was a down winder starting from PAG.

We are far outnumbered by surfers.

I've been surfing here for 20 years. Kiteboarding didn't even exist then.

Speaking of which check out my new board she's a beauty:

http://www.floridakiteboarder.com/surfing/sano1.jpg
http://www.floridakiteboarder.com/surfing/sano2.jpg

For those that can't imagine good waves in the Gulf, check out this link.

Lets not forget 2 of the best surfers in the world, Cory and Shea Lopez were born and raised right here on IRB. Cory kills it on a world wide stage.

And the best surfer to ever live and considered one of the world's best athlete's ever hails from Florida. Kelly Slater!!!!! He has won the World title so many times I have lost count. 9X???

http://gulfster.com/Pictures.html

Exactly Rick. Proactive behavior is always better than reactive behavior when dealing with problems like these. But I seem to be outnumbered here, not only by the surfers but also by others who don't want to work toward getting the area regulated.

Scott, the regulation is easy. Wear the tags yourself and lead by example as one of the guys who is more experienced without protest. If you see someone on the beach without a tag, point out the sign that explains the rules and regulations of our launch as well as the tagging and skills testing. Let the instructors posess and hand out the tags and do the testing for newbs and out of towners. Problem solved. If someone refuses to wear a tag or do a skills test, a group of local more experienced riders approach them and insist that they put their kite down. Heck, you could even include Jim Wilson in this for Ft. DeSoto if you wanted, I am sure he would be all for safer kiting practices at Ft. DeSoto as he has seen some accidents there with some experienced guys getting hurt...

Or if any of you think you have a better approach to regulate, present it but staying passive is just like holding a ticking time bomb. Eventually it will explode and if you don't get rid of it, you'll go up in smoke with it.

Stop bitching about others if you aren't willing to change yourself...

Not on this coast. I live in NORTH pinellas, so I don't know Sunset or Upham.

I just haven't seen any surfers on Pinellas beaches. Maybe I'll bring my short board down south one day!! ;)

Huh??? Who wants to skate in the same stupid park every day.

We LOST OUR FAVORITE SKATING SPOTS.

The parks are all we have left.

How is that a proactive win? It was a reactive "damn we can't skate anywhere anymore".

And WTF Toby, last I checked you were one of the people riding in the swim area at PAG right after the "Stay out of the swim zone" thread along with a dozen other guys.

So what exactly are you doing to help if you can't even stay out of the swim area? Oh a tag would have made a difference right.

I do my part. I try to stay outside the swim area and stay the F@#$ away from the surfers.

Every surfer on the gulf coast is looking at that website now thinking kite surfers are total kooks.

They are totally 100% right.

I like Kent's idea of using the STICK rather than the nice CARROT approach we've been using





Does anybody realy believe that us kitesurfers are unaware of the common sense rules of kitesurfing?
There are people that just refuse to follow them, that's where our efforts should be, IMO

I think a big reason for no action with this sign and these tags and stuff is the fact that the percentage of kiters using and reading this forum regularly is about 7%, in the end its going to take some beach promotion when we are all out there riding. Does anyone remember the tbksa, where it was about 35 of us and we were being reactive after olga's kite went into the skyway(from gear failure). forum talk is forum talk and it should be taken seriously but it isnt. we need to have face to face conversations. Do you guys know how many people showed up to the pre race party at WSW? A sh!t load. If we can get them to hold something like that again in reference to the recent ban talk, then we could get some stuff done hands on. promote the "kite night" on the beaches and advocate all riders to try to attend, because you arent going to be attending for "us" but rather for "you" because a beach ban is everyones problem. I'm sure there are a bunch of people with good ideas as well as people who would be able to put them into action. blabbing around on the forum, will just make this case go around in circles.

and seriously the ridiculous forum callouts need to end. everyone has at once done something "wrong". ive done my fair share, but calling out toby, when he is trying to help, for one thing he did wrong a couple of months ago is absurd. plus that kind of negativity is going to steer alot of people away from trying to help.

All this is going nowhere.....if some of you havent already noticed...

If we dont come together on this somehow...we might as well find a new sport..imo