The weather was super! The first real day of spring with temperatures well above 10 degrees (Celcius) and the sun was shining. The wind was blowing too, from a southerly direction at about 6 to 9meters per second (or 14 to 20mph if that’s your math). More than enough to have fun flying kites.

So after accomplishing some domestic duties, playing with the dogs in the garden and other miscellaneous stuff, I was ready for a workout on the beach. I had a plan for where to go flying, but this beach has some pretty limited flying space if high tide. So I checked the local online tide tables and found them favourable. By the time I got to the beach, there should be low tide and all of the sandbanks should make for a decent place to fly.

When I got to the parking I soon found that there was a lot of people around. Hopefully not too crowded on the beach. So I grabbed my rucksack and my kite bag and started the five-minute walk down to the beach. Thankfully there were not many people there and social distancing shouldn’t be any problem.

But …. Where was the wind? The wind that should come straight in from the sea? It was disturbingly calm when I got down on the beach, but maybe if I walked a little further I would get out of the wind shadow.

Nope, even after having walked over to the other end of the beach, there was no wind. Weird! According to the weather forecast, the wind should be plentiful and onshore at this location. Sometimes the map doesn’t fit the landscape, just like today. I had to go elsewhere.

So I started to walk in the other direction to see if I could get out of the wind shadow.

…and then strange things started to happen….