I had been wind waiting most of the day for the forecast winds to arrive. I finally threw in the towel and drove north up the coast. About the time I was to pass Hillsboro Inlet I noticed the wind had picked up. I stopped checked things out and figured, it is less than 8 miles south. You would think an easterly wind should be about the same. So I drove back. I had wanted to shoot the beachfront from a kite for some months. Here's my chance!
Setting up as the sun is sinking fast.
aka Tiki Beach
Looking south over Bahia Mar and off to Point of Americas by Port Everglades.
Just launched my 2011 Cabrinha 13 m Crossbow. This kite is a tank at the low end, lots of grunt. Just what the weather doc ordered for covering some ground in what might be lower winds. It does great in higher winds too for that matter but we seem to have more of the light stuff these days.
Is is the 100th Anniversary of the City of Ft. Lauderdale. Seems like a good way to celebrate. I grew up a few blocks north of here, went to FLHS, spent a lot of time in the ocean off here. The old stomping grounds.
I wanted to cover several miles north and south parallel to shore and, was uncertain about the wind. I ended up covering from the entrance to Birch Park north of Sunrise to the south jetty of Port Everglades. So I took my monster tt, an Underground board. It worked out well for this session. I wanted to be able to make to windward offshore despite minor lulls and waves to be able to stay ideally outside the buoy line. I understand there have been complaints about kiters inside the buoys off the guarded beach even after the lifeguards had called it a day.
Eric's building, it used to have a Bomb shelter based on the sign back in the day.
I mounted on GoPro HD on the kite and another on my helmet to capture a couple of perspectives. I ran the one on the kite in video mode and the one on the helmet for stills most of the time shooting once each second.
There was a near dead onshore wind around 12 to 17 mph averaging about 15 mph east. The closer you came to shore the lower the wind would drop due to normal boundary surface friction effects. I noticed when running in front of the several high rises the dead or more reduced pressure zones extended a good distance to seaward. There usually wasn't enough wind to pass through these areas until I tacked offshore a ways upwind.
I ran down to Port Everglades seeing a jackup barge in the distance. It was setup with a drill rig doing an exploration for a new port project presumably. A new channel deepening and/or widening project?
The jackup barge makes drilling in a wave environment feasible.
I rode for about an hour after sunset and then called it a day. It was fun session, I'll have to do it again.
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