Each year the student kitesurf association hold a mega event & party for students from all Uni's from around the UK to learn how to kitesurf & party hard! This was back in October but only just had chance to get it online!
This year was to be my first, and as I was traveling down from Norwich, the otherside of the country I put a post saying i had a spare seat if anyone wanted to travel down. I was contacted by a local flier in Camrbidge who was more than happy to travel down!
We set off around Friday lunchtime and had okish journey down, the roads were abit busy but do you expect on a Friday night!! We arrived at Will's around 7.30ish to find a lovely home cooked meal by his Mum for us! Thanks Mary! This was soon gone so we loaded up and headed down to the Campsite in Bude.
On Arrival we settled into the caravan and hooked up with some of the Plymouth Uni lot and soon started drinking. Not wanting to be a mess on the Saturday we took it easy & saved up for the saturday night!
Saturday Morning we headed into Barnstaple to get some fancy dress for the War & Peace party that evening. Once aquired we made our way to the beach.
We met up with the SKA crew to find out the plans. The tide was still in so I headed out for a quick session on the 11m Hadlow Pro. When i came in the beach had started to appear & dry out so helped out teaching the students on the beach.
After a few hours some wanted to have a go in the buggy, not just the males but females also! Good news for buggying! Most picked it up with ease and were able to get back to the starting point! This was incredible considering all done in 1 morning!
After this we went out for a bit of a session in the buggy. The wind was a steady 12-15mph so i took the 8.5 out. Able to boost some nice big smooth roations plus a variety of tech tricks.
As the tide was coming in we were being pushed closer towards the rocks, still far enough away but the sand was getting softer. On one reverse tack i downlooped teh kite but caught wheel in sand and was flung over while the 8.5 powered through wind window! There was nothing i could do but grab the release, but as the kite released the strop got caught around headstock, so there i was being dragged by the kite! Luckily managed to get strop of headstock and kite flew slightly downwind & collapsed.
I called it a day as my rib & shouler area were killing me! Not long after this was everyone packing up & heading back so i hadn't missed too much!
Back at the campsite the pain was increasing and everytime i laughed, coughed i got a sharp pain so nipped down the road to the 24hr Minor Injurys hospital. They suspected i had broken my top rib! I was so annoyed it was unreal, but knew there was nothing i could do about it!
Back at the campsite the party was then starting, I decided to party on & leave the pain killers till the morning! The party was unreal! There is nothing like it at any other event!
Expix had set up a projector with all the pictures from the day for all too see.
Sunday morning was a shock for most! Some people had gone a step too far and trashed some of the caravans so everyone was held, well excpet for the Flexi crew as we wanted to head back to the beach so managed to get away!
Sunday was a take it easy day with the injury so was asked to help with teaching again & judge the kitesurf comp.
The event went extremely well, so many people were buzzing & hyped for the sport! Alot of these being female, which was good to see for such a male dominated sport!
Bring on the 2009 AKK!
Thanks to Expix for the pictures - Click here for their website
More information on the Student Kitesurf Association - Click here
