Thursday

Hangovers couldn’t dampen the excitement on Thursday morning. It was all coming together, 30 knot winds, good tide time and a sunny sky meant today was the day for ‘Knobs hard.’ This secret spot in the middle of the ocean only reveals itself at the lowest tides and provides a 6 to 8 kilometre sandbar at the perfect wind angle for our south easterly trade winds. Due to its location it’s not possible to get the Undersea Explorer close enough to shuttle everyone over quickly.

A plan was formed for everyone to setup on another island and then kite over in smaller groups with a tender following to make sure everyone was safe. Once everyone was in the shallow water behind the sand bar I had a chance to try and capture some of the action in the crystal clear water, there’s northing quite like kiting photos where the shadows are on the sand ‘under’ the water.

Everyone had a ball, throwing 6 rooster tails and lazy floaty jumps. Kyle put in a solid session of technical grabs and landing everything else to blind, which inspired a few of the other boys to step up and try the same. Words really can’t express how sick this spot is and it really makes this whole trip worthwhile.

As the tide rose and water started lapping over the sandbar we slowly made our way back to the beach camp on Eagle Island, with stories of kiting over giant turtles, manta rays and sharks reported once everyone was safely back on the beach.

Sore heads from the night before and four big days of kiting started to catch up with guys, so a few esky’s of beers was brought over from the mother ship to help ease the pain. I took this as chance to get out on the water and have a  soul session as the sun dropped and everyone relaxed on the beach recalling stories of the days kiting.

Bretto and Kingy made the tough call to leave this island paradise after a bit of a vote amongst the passengers and crew, and the plot was formed to steam through the night back towards Port Douglas stopping off for a day at Hope Island for a change of scenery. With misty eyes the guys waved goodbye to their island home which had served them well over the past 3 days.