So, what is your guy's approach to making the lulls manageable?
I would probably be on a 13m kite with a medium sized board (43 wide) to ride out those lulls. That has to be a topic of your guy's conversations there, the best approach to gusty winds.

St. Pete isn't so gusty per se (moment to moment), but we encounter changing wind speeds (over time) throughout the day a lot. Having the wind jump from about 13 to 20 and then back down and then back up (in waves of 25 minutes) is moderately common. So, we deal with that here too, just on different time frames.

You guys must be thankful that alternatives to C kites exist.
I know kiting for me is much more pleasurable now than a few years ago.