I went to Rabbit Island after work today. It was a grey and blustery afternoon. A stiff north-west wind was blowing in on the beach. The low tide was due at around 5.30pm. Rabbit Island is only open to the public during daylight hours so tonight the gates would close at 6.30pm. That gave me a window of a couple of hours from about 4 o'clock to go buggy.
Off all the kite buggying scenarios, this has to be my favourite conditions. A storm blowing in with rain on the way. When a northerly front like this rolls in theres generally a good blow for 6-12 hours before the rain hits. Thats the time. The beach is usually deserted so no need to limit speed. In the breeze we had today a 3 meter kite was more than enough. I flew my 3.0m Flexifoil Blade II, a fast, punchy and powerful little ram-air foil. If the c-quads I usually fly were cars, they would be family sedans. Big, safe, powerful, but predictable. The Blade would be a formula one race car. Awesome performance, if you can handle it! The wind was right on the edge of its safe range. The occasional gust would try to pick me up off the buggy. I was travelling up and down the beach at about 45 kph before my speedo stopped working because of the rainwater. I'm sure I hit 60+ once or twice during gusts. The only other life form I saw in the whole 9 kilometres of beach was one guy on a blokart. He packed up and left though, just after I blew past him for the third time (whooping and yahooing and I went). Usually a blokart can go faster than a kite buggy; today I think it came down to the sanity of the pilot.
I packed up and left just before the gates closed. Sand down my pants, face numb from cold, and a grin from ear to ear.
7:34:24 PM 
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