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Old 12-30-2010, 07:17 PM
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ricki ricki is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Florida
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Welcome to kiting and that is one long first post. Flat water usually bores me to tears in fairly short order, so you can have my share. How is that? I vastly prefer waves and usually avoid flat water most of the time. I also prefer areas with few riders in the open ocean even if that means heading further offshore and to less busy spots to stay out of the way.

I still like to preserve access regardless of whether it is flat or wavy however. I am less of a sponsored rider and more one of the guys that has tried to keep kiting areas open over the years. Have to say the passion is waining after ten years of fighting for it, strangely for some of the same reasons we have access problems in the first place.

That is the issue with Marco, was an issue with Crandon, a managed concession since 2005 and formerly with Matheson. Matheson is now a managed concession since this post went up over a year ago. It seems to be a well run one too, looking out for rider interests.

I know you are new but you do realize we have lost access to kite at many launches? The more populated and/or crowded a place is often the greater pressures on access. We just apparently lost access to one of the few west wind spots in SE mainland Florida, Hobie Beach in Miami. This was brought on by years of problem riding behaviors.

Tigertail in Marco has been under threat of restrictions and bans for many years. The flat water portion is very small as you can easily see from the satellite photo. It fills up rapidly with not too many kiters. There are protected wildlife areas there that we can't afford to be seen to threaten any longer. This is the reason for the small riding area shown in the photo. If we violate it, we are violating ourselves and our privilege to ride there.

If you want flat water, the Florida Keys have hundreds of square miles of just that. Much of it is thinly populated too although there are a few crowded launches that riders seem to favor despite the massive clear areas available. Winds are usually a bit stronger there too than the mainland. You should checkout Whale Harbor, Annes Beach and other areas. These sites have issues too including excess crowding at times so be sure to learn the rules. Sebastian Inlet Park also offers a west wind venue not too far from Jupiter. Stay away from the bird nesting area with your kite however, more access threats.

There are few good unencumbered learning spots for new riders on mainland SE Florida, this has been the case for many years unfortunately. You are fortunate to have few problems with access in "most" but not all areas from Juno north a ways. If you head south, there are issues which you should be aware of. There is a great deal about access on this site, why not look into it?
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Last edited by ricki; 12-30-2010 at 08:10 PM.
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