Why it's Good to Kite with a Buddy

It was a beautiful, sunny day with a fresh 20mph wind blowing in over an outgoing tide which was kicking up really nice waves in the river mouth. Quinn had called around and rallied everyone for a session and Darren and I joined him for a quick sail.
 
When I arrived at the beach, Quinn was just heading into the water with his 6m. This seemed way too small a kite for the conditions so I ran over to him to see if he knew something I didn't. No, he had torn his 12m kite on some driftwood so he was just making do with the 6m today. Feeling a little relieved that I hadn't brought too large a kite for the day, I went about setting up my 13m. I was almost done when Darren showed up with his 15m Peter Lynn kite.
 
By the time I hit the water, the wind was freshening a bit, but not too much for the 13m. In fact it was really good. I was able to slice around on the waves and catch nice lofty airs without too much effort. Darren got himself squared away after a little bit of launch excitement on the beach (at one point I looked up and he was a good 50m away from when I last saw him as he was launching...the kite must've taken him for a little run!).
 
Once he was on the water, we both headed over to the flat water in the lee of Pyramid Island - about half a mile away across the channel formed by the Chilkat River. Normally, if I am kiting alone, I don't go out that far. I stay close to the shore inside a bay so that if I do have trouble I am pretty much going to float downwind to shore. However, with a buddy, it's safer and more comfortable to go further afield.
 
All was great for a while as we tore around on the flat water behind the island, but at one point my eye was caught by Darren's kite flapping around loosely in the sky. He was over behind the highest point of the island so he must've caught an eddy and his kite had luffed. Later, Darren told me that while the kite was luffing, one of the back lines got wrapped around the end of the kite, essentially making it about a foot or two shorter than the other line. Once the wind caught the kite again, it was essentially in the position of a radical looping turn. All I saw was a luffing kite coming back into the wind and executing a radical loop which basically popped Darren right out of the water like a champagne cord and tea-bagged him in some gigantic hops downwind. After that beating, he was able to regain control of the kite by reefing in on one side of the bar to roughly straighten things out. He was unable to get back on his board as all his efforts were focused on preventing another loop.
 
In hindsight he might have been able to bail right there and get the lines figured out, but he chose to start body dragging back across the channel to shore. I stayed upwind of him to keep an eye on his progress. He seem to be doing well, at one point really skimming along the surface at great speed. The wind was stronger now so both kites were pretty juiced. Darren's board was on a retractable leash and it seemed to be following along OK, but sometimes it would dig into the water and slow him down.
 
Out in the channel, the waves were much bigger because of the outgoing tide and something caused Darren to have another epic wipe-out. I didn't see the actual crash, but the aftermath told the story: his kite was lying in water, his board leash had snapped and he had detached himself from the bar and lines and was starting to swim to shore.
 
I spotted his board and sailed over to retrieve it. Once I had the board, I looked up to see where Darren was and he was on his way out to sea! The crash had occurred in the middle of the strongest currents and he was moving fast!
 
I tacked up to him and threw him his board. At that point he indicated to me that he was exhausted and cold and that he needed help. I pulled in next to him and he grabbed onto my harness and we started to edge out of the current and toward shore. A few times the pull of my kite was too much and he lost his grib on the harness so we repeated the process. Eventually, he was out of the current and able to touch bottom. Safe! I then went to see if there was any way I could retrieve the kite.
 
Being very cautious not to get fouled up in his lines or the kite, I did a few passes to see if there was a way I could grab some part of the kite so that I could pull it to shore without it powering it up. However, the part that was in the water was too water-logged and there was still a dangerously dynamic part of the kite in the air. I decided not to make a bad situation worse and backed off.
 
Back on shore, Darren was feeling very relieved about being in one piece and not caring too much about what happened to the kite at that point. We knew it would wash up somewhere soon as the tide was dropping fast.
 
Seeing the stricken kite out there in the middle of the river made us realize that we'd better call the police to let them know that no-one was still attached to it and that everyone was safe. Good thing, too! The dispatcher told me she had just received a report of a downed 'parachute' in the river and was about to send out a team to investigate! I assured her that all was fine, but over the course of the next hour or so she received many calls about a potential accident.
 
Darren retrieved his undamaged kite a while later and we all were reminded about important the buddy system is when kiting in our cold, dynamic Alaskan waters!