Buggy Or Bust - CLSC Meet April 2011

Well, it has been over 18 months since my last buggy outing, which was the September 2009 CLSC meet at Pembrey. I have not picked up a kite or sat in a buggy since then! Various reasons have left me frustrated and wondering whether I would take part again.

With a new year upon us and weekend work rota sorted, it was time to see if I still enjoyed being out on the beach.....and camping! The CLSC Meet dates have been booked and the Wallop experience had to be tasted again.

I arrived at Pembrey Country Park on the Friday morning - the roads being particularly quiet (some wedding going on in London), set up the tent and headed down to the beach. The usual suspects were out and some new faces that I had not met before. The wind was pretty light, but eventually swung round to onshore and it was fairly tasty for half an hour before it dropped to a sedate 10mph. This meant the big kites could come out - more specifically the 10.5m Bora ll. Amazingly there were no moths in the bag or holes in the kite and within a couple of minutes it was flying like I remembered it. Sweet!!

All too soon the tide was approaching and it was the signal to head back to camp and fire up the cooking. Not many miles to show for the day, but at least the old motto 'You never forget how to ride' held true.

The Saturday proved a bit more challenging with the wind just awful. I sat and took in the rays as various people tried to fly but ended up snapping lines, blowing kites up and generally getting hacked off. I thought I would save myself until Sunday!!!

Yet again the Saturday evening highlight was the club BBQ, which was superbly cooked by the Southampton massive plus helpers. Talk about desperate for food - it was a bit like a stampede at times. Calm down, calm down!

Sunday, Sunday, what a day! Dai Wilmer suggested Pendine for a change as the wind was Easterly and Saturday had been a waste of time at Pembrey. Off we all chugged around the estuary to find the wind blowing across the beach at Pendine, however the beach did turn round the corner at it's Eastern end, so there were possibilities of a good run. Straight away I was out with the Bora ll 3.7m and continued to use this kite for the whole day. I set off to zig-zag up the beach in an Easterly direction to see where it went, not having buggied here before. Dai and a blokarter also made the long trek into the wind, avoiding the bombing area!

After a good hour or so, the beach curved round to the North and I was able to make some good speed heading up the estuary as the wind was now on the beam. Occasionally there were soft patches to deal with, but right across the middle was a hard 'dome' of runway. After a bit of a venture into some real rugged terrain, an emergency halt was needed before a:) I came out of the buggy, or b:) it tipped over!! After a brief respite it was time for a blast in a southerly direction. It was blowing pretty hard at this point (~25-30mph?), but with the rock hard 'dome' to contend with it felt safe.

A few minutes later I stopped before I entered the soft sand and Bristol Channel. "That was a good run", I thought, and looking down at my GPS saw that I had smashed my PB and hit 52.0 mph!! Well they did say that Pendine was the beach for Land Speed Records.

After that there was nothing else to achieve on the day so it was a quick downwind blast back to base camp. I might just have mentioned to a few people what I had done!

There followed a bit of larking around gybeing back and forth as the tide came in, and in no time we had to pack up and adjourn to the pub for a pint before heading back to Pembrey.

One of the best experiences in a buggy and so soon after spending 18 months or so on the sidelines. Thanks to all who made the weekend possible (CLSC Committee, BBQ'ers, fellow CLSC'ers and the welsh wind). Ciao.