Great trip in the Gorge the other week, what a super place. Most normal people would expect gusty winds and crap chop out. In fact there are waves in the middle of the river where the current rips out towards the Pacific.
“Why aren’t they out on the sea?”, “How are they not in hospital all the time?”- Just a few of the regular thoughts we might have as kitesurfers when watching the landward kiteboarding folk. Taking a closer look we can see that Varying terrain and a higher risk factor could be some of the biggest draws to the sport and maybe why they choose the land as there preferred surface.
Here in England the worlds best Urban Kiteboarders can be found. David Ursell, Aj Philipsen, Lewis Wilby, Craig Sparkes, Kris Beech and Danny Copeland can be seen in this video easily boosting as high as kitesurfers and also throwing respectable loops that would gain cred out at sea.
They choose the small seaside town of Frinton-On-Sea in Essex. Frinton, Also famous for the controversial Subway add, “Am I Dead? No You’re in Frinton on Sea” has become one of the hot spots for Kite landboarding and its not hard to see why.
Is this the right Indian to use for reflective matters? The expression ‘Indian summer’ has been used for more than three centuries. The earliest known use was by French-American writer John Hector St. John de Crevecoeur in rural New York in 1778. There are several theories as to its etymology:
*In Colonial New England and New York, Indian Summer referred only to a January Thaw, when American Indians Raiding parties could be expected in the western and northern areas: the ground had briefly lost its snow cover so tracking the Native American raiders back to their winter camps was much more difficult for the Colonials.
*In The Americans: The Colonial Experience, Daniel J. Boorstin speculates that the term originated from raids on European colonies by Indian war parties; these raids usually ended in late autumn (due to snow covered ground), hence summer-like weather in the late fall and mid winter was an Indian Summer, a time raiding parties could be expected.
*In the same way that Indian giver was coined for people who take back presents they have bestowed, the phrase Indian summer may simply have been a way of saying “false summer”.
In China, this period is called “qiū lǎohǔ” (秋老虎), which literally means ‘a tiger in autumn’. In Chinese, it signifies the revival of often fierce, summer-like heat that persists well past the Beginning of Autumn. This hot weather may persist until well into October or November in the southern regions.
In the south of Brazil, a similar phenomenon is called “veranico de maio”, a regional term roughly meaning “little summer of May”, representing a short span of hot weather that occurs mid-autumn.
In former times in Europe, ‘Indian summer‘ was called ‘Saint Martin’s Summer’, referring to St. Martin’s day, November 11, when it was supposed to end.
The phrase ‘Saint Martin’s Summer’ comes from France where it is still widely used. Saint Martin of Tours died in Candes sur Loire, nowCandes-Saint-Martin, on November 8, 397 AD. His corpse was claimed by people of both Poitou and Touraine provinces. The latter pilfered him and brought him on a boat by the river Loire to Tours where he was and still is buried. Legend has it that the river banks flowered as his corpse went by from Candes to Tours.
In British English ”St. Martin’s Summer” was the most widely used term until the American phrase Indian Summer became better known in the 20th century.
