7/9 Wednesday
 

Am I dreaming? Another great day of wind out there.

Its July freakin 8......no storms.....and 18 knots.

What more could you ask for????

Had a great downwinder today from Maderia to Sand Key with PJ.

Really starting to enjoy being on a surfboard with the kite out in the Gulf.

Pinch me!!!!!!

Bummer!!!!!
 

Thursday
west winds around 10 knots. Seas 2 to 3 feet. Bay and
inland waters a light chop. Scattered thunderstorms in the
morning...then numerous thunderstorms in the afternoon.

Thursday night
southwest winds around 5 knots. Seas 2 feet. Bay
and inland waters smooth. Scattered thunderstorms in the
evening...then isolated thunderstorms after midnight.

Friday
southwest winds around 5 knots becoming northwest in the
afternoon. Seas 2 feet. Bay and inland waters a light chop.
Isolated thunderstorms.

Friday night
southeast winds around 5 knots. Seas 2 feet. Bay
and inland waters smooth. Isolated thunderstorms.

Saturday
southwest winds around 5 knots becoming northwest near
the coast in the afternoon. Seas less than 2 feet. Bay and inland
waters smooth. Isolated thunderstorms.

Saturday night
southeast winds around 5 knots. Seas 2 feet.
Bay and inland waters smooth.

Sunday
east winds around 5 knots becoming northwest in the
afternoon. Seas 2 feet. Bay and inland waters smooth. Isolated
thunderstorms.

Sunday night
east winds around 5 knots. Seas 2 feet. Bay and
inland waters smooth. Isolated thunderstorms.

Monday
southeast winds around 5 knots becoming northwest in
the afternoon. Seas 2 feet. Bay and inland waters smooth. Isolated
thunderstorms.

They have not called for any of this. IMO the system did not move enough to kill tomorrow completley. Might want to go out a little earlier tomorrow.

But for now we are on 7 out of the last 8 days (every day but Sunday)in waves and good winds on 12m kites in July (in Pinellas county FL)

It's the Al Gore summer of love. Anyone who can invent the internet can give us trade winds in July.

Up here we have Hood River like current (6 to 9 knots) against the wind all afternoon, so we are the conveyer belt to heaven.

I agree with Whitey, its gonna blow tomorrow!
After that, I think its going back to the regular summertime seabeeze, with a few rideable hours most days.... Just gotta get out there and be ready to go.

I am sore from putting in about 20 hours at the SW the last 3 days. It has been crankin' down there!
I have lost track over the last 2 months, but have averaged about 4-5 days a week with rideable wind, mostly on an 11 or 13 and a skim board. Best summer ever- hands down!

Just updated the new KTB site with a new look, more weather links, gear maintenance, and a bunch of "other stuff"- check it out!
(If anyone has pics, I'd be glad to add them);) email them to: lessons@kiteboardingtampabay.com
www.kiteboardingtampabay.com

Website looks great Steve. Nice job.

It's been crazy wind for sure. Each of the last 3 days at about 1pm has gone to 18-20 or so until about 4pm. Pretty unreal for the summer.

The fastest currents we get down here occur at Egmont Key and hover around 4 knots at their peak during new/full moons. That's crazy fast water.

6 to 9 knots must be a Florida record. I wouldn't want to break down in that.

Thanks Steve-O, but I really have to give the credit to Scott with answering all of the 10,000 silly questions that I have on a daily basis. Dude knows his stuff for sure.
I am definitely still a noob, but learning at a good pace and having fun doing it. Its kind of addicting actually, except for all the nail biting, hair pulling, and temptation to choke the computer! :confused:
Now I know why they charge so much for building sites! (hahaha)
Thanks to Amber and Roy for letting me pillage their pictures!

Yep, kiting in currents is only for the experienced ones for sure. Just had this discussion yesterday at the SW. I found out the hard way when I was a beginner and thought I was going to drown. There's a piece on the local forum about it.

Some info on kiteboarding in currents here:
http://kiteboardingtampabay.com/inde...126&Itemid=242

Will add some other stuff later;)

Thanks for the shout out Steve, but you put in hundreds of hours to that site.. nice work.
You are now only a few steps away from being a Joomla Ace (geek!! :) )
In terms of price per site, many people don't have a clue how long some sites take to build. They just see the final product, click through it and assume it took about as long to build as it does to click through it. It's just how it is. ;)

Of course, content is still king, and your site has tons of it.
If given a choice, I personally would rather get info than look at something pretty. Example :) - http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/
Opposite example (lack of meaningful content... but arranged to look important) http://www.tmz.com/

okay, end of social commentary. :rolleyes:

Oh if you want some quality "social commentary" ask me about my views of Obama and his "policies" sometime... you'll get an ear full.....HAHAHAHAHAHA

Not only am I a non-profit nerd and a computer geek, I'm also really into politics..... What a DORK I have become....:rolleyes:

It is the fastest I have seen here. All of the sand they dredged up has moved into the pass and it is necked down pretty tight right now. Couple of days ago we had the boat anchored just on the edge of the sand bar and the pass waiting for the wind to fill in, the current was screaming. It was hot so we took a swim. None of us could swim fast enough to stay with the boat, we could bearly stand up in knee deep water. So Hank says let's water ski. We hooked up the ski rope to the anchored boat and took turns trying to ride on the glide behind the anchored boat. Wasn't pretty.

Agreed, but what is content if its not organized in a manner to leverage it?? Correct?

BTW great job on the site steve, real impressed, good content, well organized too!

Danny

Thanks Danny! The hardest part was not building the site, it was getting everything moved from SlowDaddy to a real host (Siteground).I had to remove a lot of stuff that got messed up in the transfer. There's definitely a lot of tweaking left to do, re-adding content, and editing it all down, but at least now I can see the darn site to work on it!
The Classroom portion is phase two, and was about 50% complete before I totally trashed it. A few instructors and exp. kiters are going to work together on rebuilding it, and it should be a great tool for everyone in the near future.;)
Other funny stuff:
100% built in Internet Explorer (yeah,yeah, I know..):rolleyes: (I had to wait 5-15 seconds between clicks, every step of the way, I thought it was Joomla that was moving so slow!:confused: (With all the issues I had I was a little nervous about trying anything different.)
Today is the first day I am really using Firefox and its at least 300% faster and the site is actually a lot "crispier" looking. The next site will be a cakewalk....
*I highly recommend IE users switching to Firefox! Scott has told me that several thousand times, now I know why...;)

www.kiteboardingtampabay.com

Danimal,

No doubt, content together with "look and functionality" can't be beat.

NPR is a good example of good layout and content (not saying I agree with the content, btw). I was just making the point that (imo) 99.9% of internet info is total crap, regardless of appearance, and that I would take content over looks any day :)

Also saying Steve has a lot of (useful... not talking twitter tweeter) content. That's pretty rare on most sites.