[ricki]

Dunc, sounds like you take your winter vacation seriously. Keeping that in mind, why not get a subscription to ikitesurf if only for a while. Although, they have stuff on there that is essential for weather planning in my opinion, mainly upweather real time winds. That's another story. Anyway, look at the wind archives in ikitesurf. Just had a quick look for December 2008. First for Key West. About four days out of 31 were pretty light, say less than 12 kts.. The other days were often quite a bit more, high teens, 20's, etc. but were rideable as a rule for at least part of the day. The Keys have more wind more of the year than any other part of Florida. Looking at Jupiter, that increased to around ten days out of 31 give or take using the same criteria, again part of the day. You will have fewer useable days in November as a rule and more in March.

As with the stock market, past performance doesn't necessarily accurately predict future performance. Although in the case of wind, it is usually a better indicator. Some years are better than others. What sort of winter will this be? Too soon to say, hope it is a good one though. Many thousands of kiters have vacationed in various parts of Florida for about ten years. Some had a good winds, some didn't, some only lucked out for part of the time. Planning, selection of supportive timing and location can have a lot to do with the outcome, oh and some luck too at times.