Flying a kite

The conditions today were just right for sailing, so S went to La Nautique for the afternoon. I dropped him there and went off to Narbonne Plage for the kite festival. Conditions were near-perfect for that too. 

The afternoon was dedicated to demonstrations by kite-flyers from all over Europe, flying kites to music. Mostly they did it singly or in pairs, but one group of nine made figures in the air with nine kites. These sporty kites have four strings each and can be manoeuvred with incredible accuracy, even braking and changing direction at the flick of a (strong) wrist. They made it look easy, but preventing thirty-six kite strings from tangling with each other while flying in tight formation in gusting wind requires some skill. Also on display were massive kites shaped like fish, whales, and giant bears, tethered to literally half a ton of sand. Even so one managed to escape out to sea and was chased down by a boat. I spent a happy hour and a half watching, ate an ice cream, and then went back to pick up S. There's a small album here. And yesterday's late night is backblipped.