New Year's Eve

We had a GREAT - make that FABULOUS - time flying our Mambas New Year's Eve night. There is a field right across the street from us that we have premission to fly in. The family that lives there was having a big New Year's Eve party and we wanted to fly for them. It rained most of the day and much of the evening so we didn't think were going to be able to fly. But the rain quit about 10, just about the time we were heading to the party. (There are great advantages to having a bar that closes at 9 pm.) The moon was high and bright, just three days before full. So we hooked up the lights to our Mambas and just took off. We didn't tell them we were coming, we just launched. We heard somebody yell, "Chiringas!!!!!" (the Puerto Rican word for kite) and the whole party, 150 people or more, came to watch us fly. More than one person told us watching us was better than watching fireworks.

Flying kites together anytime is amazing, romantic, sexy. But at night, under a full moon, it's absolute magic. We started a harvest full moon festival back in Michigan, just to celebrate and share that magic with friends and the world. Flying on New Year's Eve was almost indescribable. There was such a shared sense of pure joy. And we got to share it with our new neighbors, who enjoyed it as much as we did.

It's interesting. There is a ton of kite-boarding here but very very little in the way of single- or dual-line kites. There are several kite festivals on the island (gotta check those out) but mostly what we've seen is tiny plastic Gayla-type deltas. We now have kites for sale in the bar, just some single-liners from Premier. Hard to say how they'll do; we've only been open four days. But there is some interest in dual-line. We'll see.