A Tybee kind of Morning...Kite Surfing & Photo shoots

We biked over to the North Beach knowing it was cloudy and little chance of a great sunrise but we enjoy greeting the day at the beach. It was quite windy. We climbed up on the lifeguard station to be out of the wind. A good looking young man stopped by and unloaded a mini mountain of stuff. We quickly realized we were in for a treat. He was very friendly and he was a Kite Surfer. We have had the pleasure of watching this sport from a distance. Now we were going to see how it was done from scratch! He said when the wind was up he just had to take the morning off and head to the beach. He looked much younger than the 42 years he mentioned. Tall dark and handsome with an outgoing personality. We discovered in a short time that he was a contractor on the island, a type A+ personality with a heavy dose of perfectionism!  It was very obvious that he was a perfectionist by the way he had his equipment organized. He quickly starting laying out the complicated looking lines, and other pieces of equipment. He used a hand pump to add air to the outer rim of his kite. That was the first time I knew they did that! In short order he had the kite inflated and ready to go.

He had a harness that fit around his waist and he had a wet suit on as well. We were in for a treat. He was an extremely accomplished Kite Surfer. He was using a wake type board today. He commented he had surf style boards as well. When he hit the water and started jumping the waves and getting 20 feet or so of air I felt like I was flying right along with him. 

We enjoyed watching him for over an hour. He offered some help to another Kite Surfer who was clearly learning. He had his lines so knotted up when he got them out it took nearly an hour to straighten them out. He struggled with the kite and our new friend finally held the newbies kite along with his own while the newbie got straighten out and finally hit the water. He was clearly still learning which highlighted the difficulty of the sport. 

Being Tybee less than 20 feet away we also had a full blown photo shoot going. Complete with clothing changes accomplished inside a small black tent like structure and was held down by three young women getting inside with the one girl that was was changing. Very interesting. 

Just another early morning on Tybee!