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Arizona Lou

Locations for Wind

Contents:

Find the Best Conditions For enjoyable and safe riding, look for steady, side-on-shore winds, most easily found on the coasts. Our Weather page contains a lot of links. Where's the best wind? Here is a list by month of best wind for kiteboarding destinations worldwide.

Here in the US check out the average temperatures.

Worldwide
COGOW maps give you a good idea of when and where the wind blows. (Use Google Chrome)
OSU maps
Globe Click and zoom anywhere on the earth for current/past/forecast graphic of wind & other WX information.

Get averages by month for: winds, probabilities, directions, temperatures and lots more at WindFinder.com (Pigeon Point, Tobago here).
Windfinder.

Wind Alert gives the year at a glance, graphically, almost anywhere.(Cabarete here).

Averages by month of everything but wind at Holiday Weather (Cabarete here).
Holliday-Weather.

Favorite kiteboarding locations are (best at the top of the list):

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OBX
Hatteras Island and the Outer Banks off the coast of North Carolina
 As someone who has kited all over the world, my favorite place is the Outer Banks, off the coast of North Carolina, otherwise known as Cape Hatteras (Look for our GPS waypoints beginning with ha...). This includes the famous Hatters Island, just south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina where the Wright Brothers conducted their first flight in 1903. In fact their memorial is a good place to spend the day if the wind is not blowing or is blowing too much for your kite size and skill level.

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Mile Post Index: Finding things on the Outer Banks can be a challenge. It's like taking your typical town and stretching it out in one long street. Everything is along there somewhere, but where? In the northern area (Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills, Nags Head) they reference mile posts. Here is our own Mile Post Index of the good stuff. Your GPS distance from HAMILE will be your exact mile-post location on the Croatian Highway
Two ways to create the HAMILE waypoint are:
1) Download our GPS waypoints and look for HAMILE
2) In your GPS receiver create a HAMILE waypoint at   N36.12266   W75.72458

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Most awesome flat-water downwinder, anywhere. 6.5 miles of pure fun on an OBX southwest wind from Planet of the Apes to Kitty Hawk Kites in Waves (my waypoints haPlan to haKHK) Most places you can stand up in the water!

  1. The whole distance there are many inlets which you can go into as far as you dare. If you misjudge and go in too far, just tack your way back out.
  2. No Ache Island Slick where you can spend hours working on your glassy-smooth water skills with full wind
  3. Dead-End Canal - how far in can you go toward Highway 12?
  4. Dogleg Canal - enter straight downwind and come out on a screaming broad reach
  5. Cross Canal - follow this third-mile canal almost directly cross-wind and you will come out at the eastern end of the:
  6. Salvo Slick, just south of
    SDA
    Salvo Day Use Area
  7. SDA
    Salvo Day Use Area
    , is about 3..5 miles from Planet of the Apes and a good take-out place if you have problems
  8. Gazebo T-Dock - Ride in and carve in the T and ride back out toeside or jump to healside. Do it again!
  9. Skinny grass islands for jumping, if you're up to it
  10. Real Slick - another good one
  11. Real Kiteboarding - land here only in case of an emergency
  12. Hatteras Island Sail Shop - Usually someone is there to land your kite for you, although there is limited space
  13. Kitty Hawk Kites where someone will catch your kit for you. You can roll it up on the grass

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OBX Riding Locations and Downwinder Maps by Arizona Lou

Pamlico Sound Atlantic Ocean
(Broadband Version) (Broadband Version)
map of Pamlico Sound map of Pamlico Sound Right click a map and Save Image As... to download it to your computer.

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South Padre Island, Texas (Look for our GPS waypoints beginning with Sp...)

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Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point) Mexico (Look for our GPS waypoints beginning with Mxr...)

Here is an EXCELLENT interactive map that Tommy "Thomas" put together with about 50 locations for kiting, places to stay, eat and drink. He and Rita are good people to know down there. go 2 Rocky Point.com is Tommy & Rita's website

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San Carlos, Mexico (on the mainland). (Look for our GPS waypoints beginning with Mxs...)

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Brazil (Look for our GPS waypoints beginning with b...) . Check out the historical winds by month in Northeastern Brazil, courtesy of Oregon State University.

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GPS Waypoints & Coordinates for kiteboarding locations & shops (over 200 from Arizona Lou) in the following file formats:
.txt file (text) - Read/Search/Copy/Paste/Coordinates (1.3 Mb file)
.gdb file (Garmin specific) - Open with your software or load into your GPS receiver (346 Kb file)
.gpx file (GPS Exchange Format) - Copy & paste into a file that is compatable with Google Earth & most brands of GPS receivers & software (2.2 Mb file)

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