Learning Curves

Splat. Pause. Splat. Pause. Splat. Pause. Waves are slapping against the back of my wet suit by the bucketful as I begin my backward march into the whitecapped waters of the Pacific, all the while clutching the reins of an airborne kite the length of a minivan.

Kiteboarding, an undertaking that marries two of mother nature’s most basic elements—wind and water—may well be the fastest-growing watersport out there. Christopher Percy Collier straps a new-fangled board to his feet while harnessed to a very large kite to see what happens.

A SERIES OF GENTLE, deliberate tugs is all that is necessary to keep the mighty kite aloft. I glance down at the three red safety devices I’ve been made acutely aware of. I likely won’t need any of them, I’ve been told, because all it takes to shut down this crimson-striped behemoth hovering overhead is a push on the 2-foot-long, water ski–style bar I’m using to steer with. Simple enough. That is, until an embarrassingly unimpressive swell rises up and swallows me whole. I go from Aquaman to jellyfish.

So begins my salty baptism into the walk-and-chew-gum sport of kiteboarding, the seemingly outlandish act of using a billowing kite to pull and lift yourself across water—at the speed of fright—with a board affixed to your feet.

My head, slathered in sunblock and perpetually tilted up toward the kite, is engulfed. The surging wave sucks me off the sandy ocean bottom, thrusting me forward like a giant waterlogged sponge. I squirm, flailing about like an unattended tyke in the deep end of a swimming pool. Steering blindly, keeping my hands above the water while fighting the washing machine–like churn, I contort my body in a last-ditch effort to prevent the kite from a soggy plummet.

I find my footing in the soupy wash, bewildered, squinting against the sun and the sting of salt water. Amazingly, the kite is still up—though streaking sideways across the peacock-blue sky. I tug left, it whips around 180 degrees and rises and I get my first in-water feel for the power of the kite: I’m pulled through the water as if I’ve just lassoed Flipper.

I drop the kite down near shore. My instructor wades toward me with a giddy and approving look on his face. “OK, you’re ready for the board!”

There are a number of ways you might come to the sport of kiteboarding. You may have, for instance, already exhibited a deep-seated desire to skim across the water on a smooth, thin plank of some variety—surfboard, wakeboard, water ski, Boogie board, skim board—and what a young punk you must have been! Or perhaps you like to feel the wind on your face and have tried sailing (admit it, you own boat shoes), windsurfing (was your hair feathered back in the 1980s?), or parasailing (on that trip to Cancún, no doubt). As for me, the urge was simple: For once, I wanted to be ahead of the curve.

I wanted a fleeting glimpse of a sport—any sport—as it was evolving. And kiteboarding, a Maui, Hawaii–born pursuit that has only been around since the 1980s, seemed my best shot—that is, if I didn’t slack.

Kiteboarding, to be sure, is no longer some fringe pastime of the beach-bum, headbanger set. There are more than 130 affiliated kiteboard centers to choose from, and some 3,000 kiteboard instructors recognized by the International Kiteboarding Organization; one estimate suggests that there are approximately 200,000 kiteboarders worldwide.

Nevertheless, kiteboarding remains an activity that hasn’t been fully figured out. No single super-athlete has captured the collective imagination. And no riveting book or feature-length movie has bubbled up to the mainstream (though there are more than 5,000 videos on YouTube). Still, I had to act fast.

A thin layer of sand blows across the beachscape as I merge onto the surfside freeway otherwise known as California’s Pismo Beach—one of the last public beaches you can drive across in the Golden State, and one of kiteboarding’s Lower 48 hot spots.

I’m trailing a cherry red Toyota Tacoma pickup whose flatbed is filled with a stack of kiteboards and two hulking plastic containers of lines, kites, harnesses and clips. My wet suit, rented from a bleached-blond, 20-something girl in designer denim standing before the counter of a dimly lit surf shop in town, is in the back seat of my rented Land Rover. Upon reaching a decidedly desolate stretch of beachfront, the pickup pulls off to the side, and out pops Jason Lee, owner of California Kiteboarding. “The wind looks good,” he says, looking off to sea. “See those whitecaps out there? It’s about to pick up.”

Though Lee has been a kiteboarding instructor for half a decade, he hardly comes off as a beach bum, surfer dude, skate rat or whatever other stereotype might come to mind when you think of adrenaline junkies. Both on the phone and in person, his vibe is more like that of an even-keel financial consultant from the Midwest than of someone who has spent countless hours introducing others to the sport when not off doing it himself.

Lee crouches down and unfurls the first kite. He unravels two kite lines, making sure they are tangle-free. It’s small. Five meters. “Have you flown a kite like this before?” he asks. I tell him I have, neglecting to mention it was a $200 trick kite bought and broken on the very same day. Lee’s rigs, one of which comes with a garbage bag–sized backpack for carrying it to far-off lands, easily costs in the thousands.

He launches the kite for me and demonstrates the basics. Pull right, then pull in, and the oblong kite parallels the ground and flies right across the sky. Pull left and it goes left. Keep pulling on one side and the kite spirals. Pull inward with both hands to power the kite; push out and the kite rises into the safety zone.

“Remember, it’s not a steering wheel,” he says after he hands the kite to me and I execute a couple of nose dives. “Pull the bar. Don’t turn it with the kite.” Soon he lays out a larger kite and we get it aloft. This is when a series of clichéd thoughts runs through my head. Among the most salient: My wife is going to kill me if I come home hurt.

But I continue to make perfect figure eights with the kite. My biggest concern: burnout. I’m worried I’ll be too tired to stand up, let alone navigate what will surely be a much larger kite. And here comes the next kite. It’s a monster—so large, in fact, I need a harness.

This, I discover, makes managing the kite much easier. As I drop the kite into the power zone—straight in front of me, just above the horizon—I lean way back and efficiently skid across the sand, simulating what will happen on water. I play the kite for a spell, repeatedly walking it backward as I reach dunes. Phew! My strength returns. I have solid control of the kite. Technique (in other words, body weight) has made up for muscle. I’m ready for the water. “This is going to be like water-skiing,” I say. “Yeah,” Lee retorts. “Except you’re also driving the boat.”

By the time I walk backward into the surf, there are a half-dozen other kiteboarders on the beach. After a few trials in the water without the board, I finally take a brief skim across the water with the board beneath me, the kite in my clutches. I look back at Lee, who offers up a congratulatory cheer, pumping his arms in the air. I’m stoked. I’ve gotten a taste of kiteboarding while it’s still in its infancy.

After that, the day is done. The wind dies down a bit, we pack up and say our goodbyes—but I’m not fully satisfied.

Later on, I ask myself why. What is it that makes people travel halfway across the world to do this, or agonize over daily wind speeds in search of perfect conditions? I ask it straight out, in a single-sentence e-mail to Lee a few days later: “Why do people go kiteboarding?”

He pings me right back, moments before boarding a plane to Belize for a two-week kiteboarding romp: “It’s the closest you can get to walking on water. When you jump, it’s like flying. You hook into the earth’s atmosphere and go for a ride. You can jump 30 feet in the air and just float. It’s created completely from the natural environment.”

I realize it’s practically impossible to experience that as a beginner. But I saw it on the coastal drive back to my hotel from a cliff-side overlook. The wind had unexpectedly picked up again. Kiteboarders crisscrossed the breaks, launching themselves into the air and hanging there like well-thrown Frisbees. Then they’d float down Peter Pan–like into the inky surf. It was the sort of sight that makes you realize that the world is full of new experiences. Thanks to some unexplainable yearning, there will always be some next new thing to try.

For Christopher Percy Collier—who lives in Avon, Connecticut, and writes about adventurous pursuits for titles such as Men’s Journal, Outside and National Geographic’s Adventure—“go fly a kite” has taken on new meaning.

photos by Christopher Percy Collier