And just like for 2021 and 2022 there will be a Virtual Windless Kite Festival! The date is February 25th. Everything is taking place online and AERIALIS Kites will contribute! That’s one of the reasons I was eager to squeeze in a windless flying session. One way to contribute to this festival is to create a video of yourself flying a kite in windless conditions.

I’ve been waiting for the wind to die down so that I can shoot the video. Yes, I know I have access to that indoor riding arena, but I wanted to shoot the video outdoors for several reasons!

Yesterday the weather forecast looked promising. Sunny and down to pretty much dead calm, so I got ready to fly and film and crossed my fingers for the weather forecast to be spot on.

But it wasn’t.

When I left home, it was foggy but pretty much no wind. Hopefully, the fog would lift when I got closer to the water. Yes, the fog did lift a little, but it was still overcast when I hit the beach. There was also a slight draft, on and off, coming in from various directions making the flying conditions rather difficult.

Nevertheless, I gave it a go with the Feather, my fave indoor/windless kite.

But it was hard to get into the flying rhythm with the variable drafts. Sometimes hitting me from behind, then in my face and then… nope, it was hard. I did get in some pretty decent stuff but soon I decided to walk up to the far end of the beach to see if I could find some wind shelter to fly in. I also opted for another kite, the Sweety, a fluorescent one.

At this end of the beach, things got better. The slight draft at least came from one direction and that makes things better. The Sweety was made for the conditions too, so now we were talking! I managed to fly for an hour or so capturing a lot of it with my GoPro camera!

Yes, it turned out I’d captured some really cool footage so when I got back home, I put together a video that is going to be my entry for the Virtual Windless Kite Festival 2023. I cannot publish the video for you until the actual festival is taking place, but until then you can take a look at a pile of stills from the session.