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The Boards of Summer
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"We started the business because so many people wanted to learn," Loop says. "We wanted to teach to promote safety, to keep kiteboarding safe."
Kiteboarding lessons from qualified instructors don't come cheap -- H2Air's three-hour-plus "full package" is $350, roughly the going rate for Professional Air Sports Association-certified schools in the mid-Atlantic. (H2Air will, however, apply $75 of that fee toward purchase of a kiteboarding gear package.) Sound pricey? The alternative could be costlier. Tangle in the lines of a powered kite and "they'll debone you," Loop observes dryly. There's apparently enough video footage floating around of hapless kiteboarders body-dragging over dunes, through crowds and across parking lots to suggest the value of learning from the experts.
"It can be so painful, watching people trying to teach themselves on their own," Loop says.
"It's like trying to teach yourself how to sky-dive," Menk says. "Usually we can see trouble coming before they can."
H2AIR KITEBOARDING -- 1701 Hwy. 1, Dewey Beach, Del. 302-227-1105.http:/
PROFESSIONAL AIR SPORTS ASSOCIATION -- For certified kiteboarding schools, visithttp:/
REAL KITEBOARDING -- For kiteboarding videos (cue driving guitar track) and more, visithttp:/
Paddleboarding
Prefer powering along under your own steam? There's a board for you, too. Leaving the kiteboarders behind, travel south a half-hour to Maryland to crawl past Ocean City's steady parade of T-shirt shops, mini golf, water slides and arcades to stop at a weathered bungalow hemmed in among hotels, restaurants and a Christmas store, an architectural remnant of another, long-ago era in this beach town's life. This is Ocean Atlantic Surfing. The shop could fit whole inside the average suburban McMansion great room, and it's stacked to the ceiling with surf wear, surf gear and surfboards. A block away, the ocean is an unruly mess of chop, and Ocean Atlantic owner Dave "Doc" Dalkiewicz is having a quiet afternoon, with time to talk about the object of our visit: paddleboarding.
If you're not a follower of the surfing scene, chances are you may never have heard of paddleboarding, though it's a sport with decades of history, even older roots in native Hawaiian culture, its own pantheon of legendary heroes and some astonishing feats of athleticism and endurance to its credit. It's also, in principle, profoundly simple.
"You just paddle," Dalkiewicz says.
With your own arms, that is, lying down or kneeling on a board that is a sleek marriage of racing scull and flat-topped kayak.
"It's pretty minimalist," says Dalkiewicz, 53. "You need a body of water, maybe a wet suit, a board and some gumption."
