Saturday, a lovely day in town, my friend Deb and I decided to head to Martinique Beach to fly kites. An hour away Martinique is a great location, usually with steady wind for flying large kites. I’d packed kites and reels and gloves and we set off only to encounter dense fog as we approached the beach and the beach road clogged with vehicles belonging to the throngs on the beach. We managed to find a spot to leave our car for a few minutes to take the boardwalk over the dune to the ocean but you couldn’t see much – dense fog and hordes of people. We stood for a few minutes then headed toward home.

Yesterday, I decided to fly closer to home. I drove to the Bedford waterfront and walked down the pier – another good flying spot with wind from a wide range of directions and open space to fly over the basin.

I have no pictures from yesterday because I was flying on my own. I had no trouble getting the kite up – but was the wind ever tricky – coming from different directions depending on altitude so the kite behaved erratically. I was glad I wasn’t trying to help a beginner keep their kite aloft. I flew for perhaps a half hour, controlling the kite was relatively easy as long as I was letting out line but although I reached 250′ in altitude I wasn’t finding steady air so I decided to reel the kite in – that’s when it decided it wanted to dive – let the line out a bit, steady the kite, then slowly pull in some slack. Took me a good 20 minutes to bring the kite back in – with more than 250′ of line now laid out all over the pier. It took another 15 minutes to wind up my line, roll up the kite, before I was ready to return to the car.

The last time I flew was on July 29 2019 with Mattie, my grandnephew at the Bedford waterfront. The day Mattie and I were flying we had a steady 20kph wind coming from the land behind us and Mattie had an easy time controlling the kite.

One time before that I was again flying at the Bedford waterfront with my large snowflake – don’t remember who took the picture.

Why heavy gloves you ask? Because if the line goes through your fingers at any speed – it burns! And there are times you just need to let the kite have control.

I must get out again soon. I understand why people love to go fishing – kite flying is very much the same – it takes some close attention but is very relaxing – can’t be thinking of much else when you’re flying a kite.