Punta Abreojos Kite Rescue

Ok, I'm totally hooked. Stand up paddle surfing is my new sport.

Punta Abreojos was beautiful and the water was warming up. It is amazing how fast houses are popping up on the point. We drove into town and saw a couple of kites in the air, gotted excited and pulled up to the point. That's when the fun began.

The wind was blowing side off-shore and there was one kiter out. He looked like he was having a hard time and sure enough, as we were walking down to the beach, he dropped his kite and couldn't relaunch it. We watched for a while as he tried to get it up but he just kept getting blown out to sea. Eventually he rolled up his lines and attempted to pull off a self-rescue. Unfortunately, the wind was off-shore and he just kept going out to sea.

John looked and me and said, "should I paddle out and help that guy?" It sure didn't look like there was anyone else going to help him. So John pulled out his stand up paddle board, 12ft long and 30 inches wide, and threw on his swim trunks and started paddling.

He paddled out but the guy kept getting blown out to sea and it was about 30 minutes before he reached him. They must have been at least 2 miles out to sea by then, maybe more. He finally reached the guy and rolled up his kite. They paddled into the bay and I drove the truck down to get them.

That guy was so lucky. There were no pangas in sight, and all the other people on shore were just watching him get blown away. I got some video of it, I'll post it on youTube when I get home.