Greg & Camille Go Bike

Today was an off-day in Miami. Camille woke first and walked to a nearby local grocery store to pick up food. The rest of the morning was pretty lazy as we relaxed and caught up on computer time.

We'd booked kite surfing lessons in the afternoon at 2 pm on Key Biscayne. Around noon, we left the AirBnb where we were staying and biked across the causeway. There were nice wide bike lanes along the route and multi-use paths running parallel for long stretches as well. It pretty exciting to see all the activity with lots of people pulling into parking lots for beachs along the causeway and tons of bikers/hikers active on the trails. We veered off onto a path through the woods and reached a nice look out point with a view of some fossilized coral and Miami Beach far off in the distance. We could also see a kite boarder slowly work his way from the limit of our vision to the right to the shores far to our left before swinging around and heading back.

Eventually, we made our way to the kite surfing school. The employee that initially helped us seemed a bit gruff, but he gave us a spot to leave our stuff. A little after 2 pm, we were greeted by our instructor, Hector. We spent about an hour on land going over how to set up the gear on ourselves, how to set up the kite, how everything would be attached, safety procedures and then how to manipulate the kite, etc.

Finally, we walked out into waist deep water and the lesson started. Camille went first and we were surprised by just how much the kite pulled her around. The instructor spent a lot of the lesson holding onto a strap on her back to keep her grounded. We went through different drills swapping off every 10 minutes or so. First we tried just to keep the kite steady with two hands alternating back and forth between 11 and 1 o'clock. Then we switched to 1 hand doing the same. Every time the kite crossed 12 o'clock, we were supposed to switch hands. Finally, we started adding movement (walking around) and focusing on details in the distance while maintaining control of the kite. We both improved a lot throughout the lesson, but still struggled whenever the wind dramatically changed speed or direction.

On the way back in, Hector asked us about ourselves and we mentioned the trip. We learned that apparently Hector was a high level cyclist back in Spain (even on the national team at one point). Apparently, only afterwards did he get into water sports and then started traveling the world spending time in California, Mexico, Miami, the Middle East teaching as the seasons permitted. We said our good byes and then packed up and returned to the Airbnb.

Back at the Airbnb, Camille needed computer time so Greg volunteered to pick up dinner. We were craving empanadas and eventually settled on a place near center city. The ride was a bit longer than expected, 3.5 miles each way, and he was further slowed by a ten minute wait at a draw bridge. We were initially excited about the restaurant seeing that they had locations both in Miami and Argentina, but on arriving he quickly realized that it was right in the middle of a college campus and gave the impression of a typical college fast food restaurant. Back at home, the empanadas certainly weren't bad, but we were both definitely disappointed.