Grand Haven, MI

[goestoeleven]

This afternoon (hopefully by 2 est) through Sunday afternoon is the plan.

[goestoeleven]

Probably more like 4.00p.m. my call lasted nearly 2 hours, not 20 minutes.

[goestoeleven]

Well, Grand Haven was great! Lots of kites in the air, and lots of spectators. Hot, sunny weather brought out LOTS of people to the beach. Rich C. would have had a field day playing with people . . . .

Wish I could have seen more IKE'rs there, but David and I still had a great time. I think the only (recently active) IKE members we had there were Don & Cyd from Wisconsin, Al Sparling from IL, Donna (Missouri). I met quite a few kite fliers from all over (hope I can remember some names . . . )

Friday had no wind by the time we arrived, and the fields were pretty deserted. iQuad arrived, but nobody was flying (except for really light SLKs). Saturday had good wind, tapering off late afternoon. I ended up spending most of my time on the big show kite field Saturday and Sunday. Al was the field director, and he was nice enough to point out a spot where I could set up without interfering with any of the real show kite guys. On Saturday, I put up my big delta that I've only flown one other time, and it flew great! David stuck a star kite on the line as some laundry, and we messed around with the M-Quad on some short lines and a rev on 120s. We bought some LED lights and participated in the night fly with a rev - David had a good time flying with the LEDs. Sunday had lots of wind - too much in the morning for the big kites - most of the kites were not up, and iQuad had their extra vents out. It backed off a bit later in the day, but we didn't end up flying the big delta. I mostly messed around with a vented rev on 40 foot lines, and David dug deep holes in the sand. We were both happy as a result.

Good performances by iQuad, Windjammers, Chicago Fire (and various sub-teams), Lee Sedgewick and several other fliers (didn't catch all the names). I got to hear what it sounds like when spars break on a Thor's Hammer in mid flight . . . .

All in all, a great festival. I'm nearly as tired out now as I was after Kite Party . . . .

[Mike]

Glad you had fun, sorry I missed it.

[goestoeleven]

Wind was dying down Saturday afternoon . . .

Here's a picture of David & the big kite just for fun . . .

DSC_0235small.jpg (146.31 KiB) Viewed 2629 times

Was a beautiful sunset before the night flight:

DSC_0253small.jpg (92.93 KiB) Viewed 2629 times

What you can't see is that the beach & sidewalks were PACKED with people outside the flying fields during the day.

[Mike]

I love the photo of David and the kite.
I know how packed the beach can get. It's actually better flying there when the weather is a little cool for the locals to go to the beach :)