Last wind on the long beach
Velika Plaža · safe, grateful, properly wind-shaped · Wind: 20 knots · 12 m kite · challenging but clean
The last day on Velika Plaža has been survived. This is already a headline, and for once it does not require legal review: one full kite week, no kite injuries, a lot learned, a lot improved, and safety kept at the centre of the whole operation. Very suspiciously adult behaviour.
The wind did not make the goodbye sentimental. It came in challenging: around 20 knots, with a 12 m kite, which is enough power to make every small mistake file a complaint immediately. The teachers at Kiteriders Montenegro did an excellent job keeping the progression serious, calm, and safe. Occasionally I was not entirely sure whether my full attention should remain on the kite or on the Swiss instructor demonstrating the right technique with dangerous levels of competence. In the official safety report we will write: “focus maintained”. The report may be optimistic.
What clicked today is that kite does not really want a fight. It does not need force, panic, or quick heroic actions. It needs listening. Let the wind speak first, keep the hands quiet, let the kite pull smoothly, roll up on the board, and suddenly the water stops being an opponent and becomes a sentence you can read. Just me, water, and wind. No committee required.
That is the strange beauty of the sport: from the outside it looks dramatic, but the best moments are almost soft. Less wrestling, more conversation. Less “control everything”, more “understand the power and stop making it angry”. This is a useful philosophy and also possibly advice for dealing with software deployments.
The week became much more than lessons. It became a small international language: kiters from different countries, different accents, same beach instinct, same weather-checking reflex, same look when the wind finally arrives. A few new friends are now part of the map, not as sad goodbyes, but as “see you on the water soon enough”. Kite is a special language, and apparently it has a strong dialect of optimism.
For the next part of Montenegro, here is a small visual reminder of why this country deserves more than one chapter: https://youtu.be/_YpCJf0Eu_U?si=TqM9IfMTGfLpsrwe
No dramatic farewell then. Just positive wind, positive mind, and the feeling that this was not a completed box, but a door opened properly. The follow-up should come soon enough, smooth and safe. Velika Plaža did its job. So did the teachers. Even I occasionally participated.