Hey Team,

I may not be at 100% just yet as I continue to recover from that wicked cold/flu/cholera from last week but that didn’t stop me from getting dragged face first through the Atlantic Ocean today!

I’m back in Charleston, SC where I met up with Chris, who it turns out isn’t just a better than average kiteboarder, he’s also a terrific instructor with an ample supply of kites.

We hit the beach around 4:30 in the evening and got started with a trainer kite (MUCH smaller and less complicated than the kites you actually strap to yourself). Even with such a “small” kite it was pretty clear that I had underestimated how much power they have. Kites that size have no conscience when it comes to dragging you around and letting you know who’s boss. Regardless, I managed to catch on to steering the trainer pretty quickly so Chris decided to move me up to his large kite.

Here’s the interesting thing about the large kite. If the little one had so little respect for people that it wouldn’t even help a little old lady across the street then the big kite would have happily pushed that same little old lady into oncoming traffic and giggled as she slid beneath a city bus’s Goodyears.

Yes, I caught onto the big kite pretty quickly too, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t drag me through the water unrelentingly a fair amount first. And you should probably just take my word for it when I say that there’s a HUGE difference between swallowing water and having it forced so far down your throat you end up with a reverse colon cleansing.

Back to the important bits: Kiteboarding is AMAZING!!! I was able to stand up and ride for a while and it was even more fun than I had hoped it would be (and I had high hopes). This, more than most of the other objectives, really embodies what the list is about. I’ve literally been wanting to try kiteboarding for YEARS and somehow or another it’s just one of those things that I never got around to. Now that it’s done I’m SO much happier than I was yesterday just for having the new experience and for the second time in a little over a week I’ve run into a hobby that I CAN’T WAIT to try again.

I can’t thank Chris enough but I should cut this short so I can get back to editing and actually get a podcast up eventually.

I’m done.

Brett.

If you enjoy following the adventure and want to help pay to have that reverse colon cleansing reversed feel free to hit that donate button!

Don’t let me stop you.

Bookmark to:

This entry was posted on Monday, June 16th, 2008 at 8:55 pm.