Eastbound & Into the Wind

(200km long-distance kitesurfing trip: Toronto – Darlington Power Plant and back)

It’s very rare to have a long interval (6+ hours) with consistent and reliable kitesurfing winds on Lake Ontario. When I saw the weather forecast for this day, however, I knew I could be in for a nice treat. East winds were supposed to pick up quite early in the morning, intensify throughout the midafternoon, and keep blowing all the way to sunset. On top of that, my body was itching for another endurance punishment, and so I started to plot various routes and options for my long-distance kitesurfing trip. In the end, I decided on nothing fancy, just a strangely intriguing joyride. I wanted to kite east as far as I could, turn around, and come back home at sunset. The intriguing part was to determine when to turn around. Turning homeward too early would be highly disappointing, lame, and a waste of unusually great kiting conditions, and turning around too late would mean getting stranded somewhere along the route and not getting back home. Simple enough, eh? Let’s do it.

Well, how did it go? I turned around 3 kilometers too soon!!! Had I known that a handful of my kitesurfing buddies were kiting at Port Darlington that day, I would have made those extra few tacks around the corner to surprise them. What a missed opportunity! I was kicking myself in the evening when I found out about their location. Showing up at their kite spot would have been a riot! Oh, well.

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