[ricki]

A great crowd showed up, young and old, guys, girls. Most of the meeting was spent talking about initiatives to help the community, things like dealing the ocean outfalls, poor water quality at the beaches, lifeguard illnesses and water quality concerns, political action and demonstrations in Tallahassee, messed up reefs and initiatives to improve things, surfing programs for autistic children, rolling back on dumping of raw sewage from gambling ships just outside the 3 mile limit, beach cleanups and lots more. These folks not only love the ocean but they care about what we are doing to mess it up and more than talk, they are working hard to DO something about it.

No kiterboarders aside from myself showed up. Makes you wonder about why some of us bother. The last time I regularly rode in Pompano was 10 years ago.

I did hear from several sources not with an ax to grind or malicious at all in my opinion about several disturbing things. I have heard confirmatory reports from kiters on these as well. Stories about kiters jumping and landing close to surfers in fact one time landing on the surfers board, kiters cutting off surfers passing close on the WINDWARD side, kiters jumping near and over bathers, kiters flipping off lifeguards and police as they blast through buoyed swim areas, kiters including some real experienced ones routinely riding in out of bounds buoyed swim areas despite numerous warnings.

Why is there a ban? More importantly, why shouldn't there be one?

We need to get our act together fast and ditch this incredibly stupid and bad kiteboarding behavior. Most people don't kiteboard like this, we need to work with those that do however. Leadership starts at home, please work to tackle this idiotic behavior at the beaches. Things are unraveling, indifference and dumb antics are tearing things up. Riders at large need to ride responsibly and the bad apples that are left need to be managed. More than just the Surfriders Foundation loves the ocean and the things we do there. To get cut out and for things as avoidable and dumb as this is a crime.