Utah Windriders Association

Kind of a gusty challenging day at Yuba. We had low cloud cover moving by all afternoon but no rain. Just a hand full of us kiters Todd J, Jason K, Chris S, Eric and myself. There were a half dozen windsurfers as well. Jason's wind meter was reading 20 to 43. The holes felt worse but we got after it and a good time was had by all!

sand in every hole..

every. single. hole. pictures of all to follow shortly

yeah, still pulling sand out of my eyes, ears, etc. We got lucky and had no rain at all and sun for maybe half the time we were out kiting, which was maybe 12:15-3:30. Really gusty. I was on an 8m and for the first hour was wishing i had more kite most of the time, but then a big gust would come thru and i was glad to be on the 8. The rest of the time varied from reasonably powered to barely holding it down - typical UT kiting. Eric pulled out a nice looking camera, so i played Jake for a while and was a lens-hog. John was out there tearing it up and sherwin held his own in tough conditions. I was having a tough time landing jumps on the smaller kite in those winds until i remembered something a certain avatar hating kiter once told me...look at the kite while you're in the air. I just don't feel a need to do that on larger kites, but it helps a lot on the small kite. Finally started pulling those together in the last hour.

every. single. hole. pictures of all to follow shortly

Not sure if pictures of your holes would be appropriate for this forum

The forecast was looking good for Yuba.(SW wind 25 to 35, gust as high as 50).
Jim picked me up about 10:30 and we were at Yuba by noon, where we were greeted by clouds of sand blowing down the beach.
Rigged my 4.0 with my 75 liter board.
It was very “technical” sailing. Big gusts, big holes, but then it steadied out a bit around 2:00.
Made a few reaches all the way across the lake, big smooth swells in the middle of the channel.
There was a large kiter contingent further down the beach. I was very impressed how well they were handling the big gusts and holes. Some of them were boosting pretty big.
All in all, a pretty fun day of sailing with Jim, Gary, and Tom.
The water is still pretty warm, but the air temps were pretty chilly, sailed in my steamer, hands got a little cold.
Here are a couple of pics, (sorry, not very good shots).
P.S. Every single hole.

"I was having a tough time landing jumps on the smaller kite in those winds".

Yeah me too. It seemed like every big jump had a big lull coming down... and some really hard landings!

I was a wee hesitant to go out with a 9m kite on a mending ankle and ligaments, so I rigged as depowered as possible and took out my slow board. It worked well. I spent all my time carving waves and working on ankle flexibilty. It sure beats PT. The rest of the kiters and windsurfers put on quite the show. No jumping for me in those waves yet.

Favorite moment was when a monster gust came through. All four kiters sat in the water for about 10 seconds, totally anchored with the kites depowered at 12 o'clock, and when the wind DROPPED to 30, all kiters powered up and started riding in unison as though nothing had happened.

My car resembles Saudi Arabia on the inside. I had a great time, but I suppose the quality was comparable to skiing 8 inches of slush, in the rain, while it's windy. I mean really, what else was I gonna do?

http://s28.photobucket.com/albums/c208/alpineskier1/Yuba%20lake%20october%2009/

sorry this took so long, photos are uploading now, enjoy! should be 133 pictures total if there are less showing up it's still uploading.. if you guys want any of the full res files let me know and i'll e-mail them to you

I have a couple shots of windsurfers in there somewhere, not sure who was who.