One of the many awesome parts about kiteboarding in St Petersburg is that you can ride on any wind direction. A northeasterly wind is a common wind direction for the fall season. Choosing the right spot to ride will make your time on the water more fun. The spots I recommend that will bring the cleanest, strongest wind are Skyway Bridge East and Fort Desoto East Beach.
Even though there’s many other possible spots to ride from Tarpon Springs down to Sarasota on a northeast wind, the Skyway Bridge and Fort Desoto are the two best because of the bay effect that occurs around Coquina Key. Here’s an image of a northeast wind in Tampa Bay:
The red lines indicate the wind direction. The bay effect occurs at Coquina Key and what happens here is that the wind curves around the shape of the land. As the wind curves around the tip of the land it condenses and becomes stronger so that by the time the wind reaches the Skyway or Fort Desoto its a few mph stronger.
If you’re using Ikitesurf, Sailflow or Windalert and are looking at the real time readings, whatever the sensor Tampa Bay J Cut reads on a northeast, add about 3 mph of wind to get the windspeed at Skyway or Fort Desoto
If you submit your email we promise to only send you the cool stuff you’ll want to click on like the weekend wind forecast, kiteboarding trick tips, kiteboard videos, clinics and free demos. 🙂
