My family and I are camping at Anastasia State Park in St Augustine this Saturday and I'll be trying to get in some buggying at Anastasia Saturday and Sunday afternoon when the tides are favorable. Honestly, the wind direction looks all wrong--due south according to NOAA--but I'm going to make a go of it.

If you're in the area and as desperate as me to go buggying, look me up. :-)

Philip

The wind should shift around to at least some on shore direction in the afternoon. I hope you have some good runs. Keep us posted.

Have fun! Drop us an update.
Mel

My family and I did go to St. Augustine this weekend. The camping at Anastasia State Park was, as always, great--some of the best sites I've ever used. They are heavily treed so you are not staring at your neighbor. Almost all the sites have lots of shade and wind cover (so you don't have to worry about your tent blowing away just when the buggy conditions are getting great) Whenever we can we use the Coquina loop (sites 106- 138) as it makes walking to the beach much more viable if you are so inclined--this is handy if your spouse ditches you to go to the outlet mall on I-95. Coquina also has a good playground near site 133 if your kids are so inclined.

As to the kiting, weather was wonky. We had scattered thunder showers during the day. The first day we arrived at 12:30 set up the popup, had lunch near the beach, and then went back to the trailer as the sky turned black and the rain started. We got zero beach time Saturday. I was frustrated for lack of kiting and the kids we frustrated for lack of beach. My son kept saying, "I knew we shouldn't have had lunch". He's 7 so digging in the dirt is still very important to him.

On Sunday the tide was high at 9 so we played at the beach with the kids in the a.m. True to the wonky weather forecast, a thunderstorm arrived at noon. I thought I was sunk. We ran back to the camp site to close the popup before the rain and almost succeeded. Then back out for lunch. Mercifully, by the time Susan wanted to head for the outlets and leave me at the beach, the weather cooperated and I was spared a shopping excursion.

Winds were 7-8 mph and onshore, but about 20 degrees off perpendicular. Low tide was one hour away. Beach goers were moderate near the ramp, but very thin north of the walk over as usual. I did the walk to the north side of walk over.

I self-launched my new Scorpion 16 on the first try and it was text book. It was my first time launching an Arc so I was a bit worried this would go poorly with no one to help with an assisted launch, but it went fine. The kite was so easy I really didn't fly it much before jumping in the buggy.

I did lots of short runs to warm up to the new kite and then did progressively longer runs. St. Augustine usually has a very gentle slope with nice hardpack, but yesterday it was a bit odd. The slope was not a gentle as usual and the beach was not as wide. That said, there were fewer sloughs crossing the buggyable surface. There was one spot about a mile north where one slough cut in deep all the way from the ocean, but that was about it. Washboard was minimal--one patch and it was little stuff.

The other big oddity was soft stuff. In the middle of what should be hard packed sand there was squishy stuff. It looked pretty good, but the rolling resistance went way up. Not that I slowed much as the Scorp was plenty of power even at full depower. There were multiple patches of this and they were unacceptably long if you were under-powered. I found myself running close to the shoreline to assure I avoided them.

I finished off the day with one long run to the north end of the island. Right near the end the beach wraps around as they all do. The waves have worn at the dunes some and you can buggy right up to the cut away dunes as you look out onto the chop in the channel. It's very pretty and worth the run.

On the way south I realized the rain cell I had been watching for the past 30 minutes was finally on the beach for real. The pier at the south end of the park was lost in a light gray haze. Mercifully this one had not grown large enough to spawn lightning, so I buggied right into it. The kite got pretty wet but kept flying fine 'til I got into a light down draft from the storm which ate my wind. The Scorp fell out of the sky wet and unable to relaunch in what was now about 4 mph of wind. Luckily my gear bag was in site so I packed and did a mere 100 yard walk of shame.

It was only an hour and a half of flying, but it was a hell of a successful first flight for a newbie Arc flyer with a BIG kite. Susan took the kids shopping so I know I had more fun that she did. ;-)

Philip

Wow Philip, that was such a great kite story I just had to brush sand off me! I remember those soft patches from 2 summers ago while riding bikes (I didn't buggy yet). I don't remember them being frequent or long at that time, but it is sand and can change in time I imagine.

We also make our reservations in time to stay in the Coquina loop. Every site feels like you are the only one in the campground.

I can't wait to be there in less than 2 weeks.

That's the good news/ bad news about the sea-breeze. The good news is that no matter what the local forecast is for winds, you are likely to get an on-shore breeze. The bad news is that said breeze contains a lot of moisture that fuels those afternoon boomers.

summer heat + onshore breeze= sparky spark

By the time I was back at the pavillion behind the dunes the thunder started booming every 5 minutes. It was good to be on the ground and packed.

I grew up in the Tampa Bay area so I have the greatest respect for the sparky sparky. My parents' house has been hit several times. I have watched electrical things inside the house explode during strikes. I like lightning and thunder, but not when I'm flying a kite or standing on a big flat plane.

Excellent update. Congrats on the first solo launch of an ARC. It only gets better. :wee:

Mel