One of my first stops upon arriving to California was what my family calls Windsurfers' Beach. Just a few miles north of Hearst Castle, this beach once teemed with windsurfers. Now, kitesurfing appears to be more popular. The idea of being driven a considerable distance offshore by the wind with just a surfboard under one's feet sounds thrilling whether a sail or a kite is catching that kinetic energy. Less thrilling is how sand can get lodged in a camera's lens when it is being driven by that wind. Despite the risk of getting unlucky with sand, I was happy to get these shots.
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A kite surfer rides the wind.
"Are you hitting the water soon?" I asked this surfer. She told me she had been out there, but had to "self rescue" and was now untangling her lines. As I learned, in the process of self rescue, one releases tension on half of the kites' lines, causing it to "depower." The surfer, now in the water, must wind in the kite and swim in to shore, dragging it. This surfer says luckily, she was close to shore.
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