About

The Wind In My Sail

Kiting is a beautiful thing!
As to my journey that led me to Kiting, I point to my first paddle boarding experience, April 2016. It was a wonderful time spent, meditative with glorious nature pushing you along in a rhythm that soothed the soul;
The paddle outbound; the riding in the ebb n flow of nature’s awesome touch beneath the board and at my side; to caress and play with right there at my fingertips.
Awesome feeling!

I fell in love with that experience; and this broadened my interest in water sports.

In my drive back n forth locating new sites for paddling, I noticed the numerous kites decorating the waterscape, filling the skies off the Skyway. It was a WOW!

This sparked and motivated my interest to learn more about the skills involved. And in August 2016, I had enrolled and invested in Kiting lessons with professional instructors from Elite Water Sports. Aaron and Ryan made it very safe and easy for me to learn and always encouraged me to push further.

I am presently amateur good; getting better and honing my Kiting skills each time my board and I with kite in tow venture out on the waterways. I just love it and learn each time I am out Kiting!

My new found confidence with mentors and Kite lessons secured, I recently ventured out on a Kiting trip that was arranged with other Kiters, worldwide.

Kiting took me to the country of Cuba to experience myself, life in a foreign territory; its beautiful beaches and warm, loving people that enhanced my first and only Kitecation!

I just loved the guts of it all; I loved the true grit of me creating this marvelous, memorable life experience, Kiting in not so safe local waters like home and so much and many power- packed moments, I had taken back with me from that Cuba experience. A trip of a lifetime!

You see, it took me 14 years to embark on such a journey involving waters and oceans and seas, Fish to overcome for sure.

Look at it this way. For our dear Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, her fears were…Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My! But for 14 years the fear for me was…Oceans and Sea’s and Fish…and OMG!

For it was 14 years to date that I was diagnosed with an allergy to FISH. Yes, Fish and I am a true card carrying member of the Epi-Pen users club…LOL.
This means severe allergic reactions even touching fish and its scales seeping through my skin, an organ, triggers a serious allergic reaction. Yes, it can be life threatening for it was diagnosed upon my throat closing off air to my lungs 14 years ago after ingesting a fish platter dinner casually dining out one evening with friends.

The experience was so frightening I have been on fish alert and caution for 14 years. And then, like David slew Goliath, I put the fear of the Fish attack behind me. I no longer chose to make this allergy part of my living in fear; no more a hold back to my true love and self-expression of oceans, gulfs where the beautiful fish live and more so Kites…where beautiful Kites wave. And for the love of Kiting, although an allergy is real and respected, fish fear is mere history. We can overcome fear.

I cannot touch or eat fish, that is a given; but I can Kite, Swim and Paddle and annually enjoy fishing excursions in Alaska during my summer stay at my place on the Kenai.
And to broaden my perspective in 2017 I accomplished a new bucket list item, kiting in Homer, Alaska with local group.

So kiting for me like any other successful venture in all our lives, required overcoming fear. Given a Fish allergy to boot, it required overcoming that fear too. There are always fears to overcome in any new venture fraught with either internal or external challenges, or both.

Inspired yet! Hope so, because just when you feel that your problems and challenges are more than most, the ultimate in things to overcome, life brings along something more challenging and inspiring to reflect on.

And that thing to reflect on for me, and now for you is
the one thing I am most proud of in my first year as a Kiter; that is my discovery and now my affiliation with a group called Wind Sports for Wounded Warriors, @
www.WS4WW.org

During the holidays I started following this group whose purpose is to bring wounded warriors to water sports, specifically Paddle Boarding and Kiting. Well, it was perfect given my journey, so I asked “how could I help and get involved?”
The short and long of it is, I found myself fund raising for one particular warrior the name of Mark Roseberry.

Mark is an amputee and an honored Purple Heart recipient. His ambition was to become a certified Kite instructor and to gain the credentials and certification to teach other wounded warriors with various injuries the Art of Kiting.

My fund raising event will now enable Mark the means and money to attend April 2017 certification classes, with enough to pay his way for his lodging, food and other incidentals. Personally gratifying for me, YES! Paying it forward, YES, INDEED!

I attended my first retreat as a volunteer to Wounded Warriors, May 2017 in St. Simon Island, GA. And with it comes another new adventure for me to Kite and Paddle Board in new locations, meeting new groups.
Kiting is a love of my sport.

And if the winds smiling upon me that day or hour or two, I meet up with my various local Kiters and Kite all around, up and all along the West Coast of Central FL.
To summarize my journey, this is me in a Kite shell!

The wind is picking up now…
It is blowing at my back…
It beckons me to hear its’ calling…
Listening,
I must go to it this time…
Go and flirt with The Wind in My Sail.

Namaste’
Jules