Sutro Tower as seen from Golden Gate Park

I had planned on taking pictures for a while at Crissy, and then heading out to do some kiting myself. However, after shooting for about a half hour, all the kiters started coming in. The current was flooding hard now and the wind had dropped off a notch, making it almost impossible to stay upwind. Dave, found this out the hard way, ended up way down wind, and had to come out somewhere around Marina Green.

Steve Gibson and I decided to drive over to Ocean Beach to see if there were any wind there. A few other guys that just came off the water said they might join us a bit later as well. I got lost a bit in the Presidio on my way over to Ocean Beach, but I finally made it. Well, it was windy alright - averaging well over 30 miles per hour. I was surprised to see Steve pumping up a kite in these conditions. But there he was, on the beach, just barely visible through the wind-swept sandstorm, pumping up his 7 meter.

 I walked out to him, and helped him launch his kite. He was so powered, he could barely keep his feet on the ground. And he couldn't make any headway into the wind toward the water, so I dragged him over to it. The waves were just plain ugly - 5 to 8 feet high, lined up one right after another, and closing out very quickly. Somehow, Steve was able to get past them on his way out. He made one tack out for about 200 yards, and then headed back toward the beach.

Being so overpowered, he wasn't quite able to stay up wind, and lost about 50 yards. He headed back out for another run, and this time on the way back in he lost his edge and took a nasty spill. I ran about 150 yards down the beach to pull his kite out of the water, just in time. A little shaken, he decided to come in and rest for a bit, hoping that the wind would drop off a little.

I was dying to go out, but if he was struggling so much on a 7 meter kite, there was no way I, 30 pounds lighter than him, was going to make my 8 meter kite work. So we hung out on the beach for a while. About 15 minutes later, we saw a few kites out on the water up toward the Cliff House. It was some of the other guys from Crissy earlier. Having some other kiters out on the water gave Steve some reassurance, and he headed back out, just as overpowered as before.

I couldn't take the freezing wind and stinging, blowing sand anymore, so I headed for the car and hit the road for the drive back home. I regret not getting any pictures from Ocean Beach, but the blowing sand was so bad that it probably would have ruined my camera in a matter of seconds.