Kiteboarding, Surviving, and Picking Up After Hurricanes Fiona and Ian

What's up guys? Blake from MACkite here, and today I'm going tell you about my experiences in two recent hurricanes, Ian and Fiona, that came through the U.S and the Caribbean and up into Canada: riding in them, going through them, and the aftermath of what happened. My heart goes out to everyone that lost anything. I'm thinking of you all and hope you're hanging in there. Let us know if there's anything we can do to help.

Riding in Hurricane Fiona

So here's the story of two hurricanes, a girl and a guy, Fiona and Ian, both category 4, which are pretty wicked. My experience here, which was nothing compared to what a lot of people went through, was still intense, though I also had some fun with the conditions. The first experience was with Fiona, though I didn't get the brunt of it. I was in Nantucket, Massachusetts for a kiteboarding event as it was passing by, and I just got to experience some wild conditions. It was windy every day, so it was good kiteboarding for us, but the hurricane went up the East Coast and pushed in some really massive waves which were great to ride in, though also very intense and a bit scary at times with slight offshore winds. There were seals popping up, and everyone was talking about all the great whites there. I got pretty beat up there, getting smashed by the waves, but I learned a lot and had a good experience.

Riding Out Hurricane Ian

After that event, I was headed back to Key West but missed my flight in, so I had to take a rental car from Miami. I drove into the storm. It was raining real hard and I only got a little sleep after 24 hours of being up. I woke up, and it was intense. I went out to the pier where I saw sailboats smashing into the pier, massive waves crashing in, a lot of flooding, and that was just the start of it.

The conditions weren't too bad yet, so I was able to get out kiteboarding. I got some nice jumps and then went for a little eFoil ride before preparing for the storm and getting everything ready. I had to move my car midway through the night because the flooding was getting up. The storm surge was at about five feet. It maxed at five to six feet here, but that's nothing in comparison to Fort Myers and the west coast of Florida where it got up to 18 feet of storm surge, so you can only imagine what those people had to go through in their homes with that high of a storm surge.

The Aftermath of Ian

It was quite the ride. Throughout that night and the next morning I woke up to assess the damage. Our house suffered some damage with appliances and electrical and had a lot of debris everywhere. I went to my good friend's restaurants where I worked the past nine years, and one had flooding and about two feet of sand in the dining room and into the kitchen. The other restaurant, Blue Heaven, was hit pretty hard with the wind, so there were a lot of trees and branches down. We were climbing up with chainsaws and clearing it out, and we were lucky to have a good team of people to get this done. Now both restaurants are open again, so we were spared, thankfully. It went 70 miles west of us. I can't imagine the devastation it would have caused if it would have gone straight over this tiny little island, so hearts and prayers to everyone on the west coast of Florida and all up the East Coast. They got hit hard as well with flooding and wind damage.

I just wanted to share this experience. It's quite scary to think of what Mother Nature can do. We need to have a lot of respect and to take care of our planet so that these storms don't intensify and get worse and worse throughout the years. I hope you guys are all doing well, safe, and recovering after that. I know that next time I'll be even more prepared with parking the car and taking care of everything. If there's anything we can do to help, please let us know. I'm not sure what we could do, but just let us know, or even if you just need someone to talk to, we're here for you. Thanks a lot.

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