It’s risky. It’s exciting. Kitesurfing is an extreme sports junkie’s catchall

Some people jump out of airplanes to get a fix. Robert Clark flies a kite. Though it sounds juvenile, the 28-year-old’s version of becoming one with the wind bears zero resemblance to the way Mary Poppins spends her free time. For the love of a sport called kitesurfing, Clark surfs on a board resembling a wakeboard, which is hitched to a large kite. On the contraption, he can propel himself across the water, then periodically into the air for stylish jumps and backflips.

Think of kitesurfing as skateboarding meets surfing meets parasailing meets snowboarding with a parachute — an extreme sports junkie’s dream catchall, if the wind is right.

“I’ve surfed. I’ve jumped out of a plane. I’ve bungee-jumped. I’ve tried almost everything and this still beats it,” Clark said of kitesurfing, which started gaining popularity a little more than a decade ago after professional surfers Laird Hamilton and Manu Bertin began demonstrating it off the Hawaiian coast of Maui.

On Hilton Head Island, Clark is one of about a dozen guys who spend their free time maniacally monitoring the weather and wind reports to see if conditions allow for “big air” time.

“The season is whenever the wind is, and it’s kind of variable on Hilton Head,” Clark said, noting the ideal wind speed for kitesurfing is between 15 to 25 knots. “I used to never pay attention to it all, but now I know how fast it’s going, where it’s coming from and where it’s going. It’s not the most desirable during the winter, but we’ll kite all the time. Anytime there’s wind.”

AN EXTREME CHALLENGE

Clark, who works in landscape construction, was first introduced to the sport almost two years ago on North Forest Beach. A friend kept telling him that he needed to try it, but Clark didn’t think he’d be able to handle the challenge. To learn, he started practicing on land with a 2-meter trainer kite. His first launch on Folly Field was a mess.

“I got dragged over into the dunes. It was so nerve-wracking,” he said. “But then some of the guys who had been doing it for a while started giving me helpful advice about working with the kite. I was coming down to the beach every day to try it.”

During this trial-and-error period, he met Alex Arnold, a 25-year-old from Frankfurt, Germany, who came to Hilton Head to do carpentry work. The two became fast friends through their love/hate relationship with kitesurfing.

“I saw it in Egypt for the first time and I thought, ‘This is it for me,’ ” said Arnold, who’s been into the sport for more than two years. “But I started with kite buggying.”

Kite buggying is a variation of kitesurfing that involves using a kite and a three-wheeled buggy for propulsion on land. Other alternative forms of kite sports include kite landboarding, snowkiting and kite skateboarding.

Arnold said he has fewer opportunities to surf in Germany, so he enjoys coming to Hilton Head to visit his girlfriend and to hit the beach. A background in snowboarding, wakeboarding, surfing and paragliding helped him pick up kitesurfing quickly. Board skills, he said, are a must with the sport. And since kitesurfing can be tricky, he recommends that amateurs who are interested in learning take lessons.

“With beginners, it can be dangerous,” Arnold said, explaining that the wind can be overpowering for those who don’t know how to use the equipment. Sudden wind gusts can lift kitesurfers into the air, then crash them back down again. Intermediate kitesurfers can do controlled flying and jumping at heights of 20 to 30 feet, performing a variety of maneuvers such as backflips, board grabs and rotations.

“When that kite is pulling you, it’s like a train,” Arnold said. “It’s really strong. But you just need to know how to use your gear. Once you’ve got that down, you’re hooked. I’ve tried everything, but this is the best sport I’ve learned. It’s so peaceful and so aggressive, too.”

GOING ISLAND TO ISLAND

Though still relative newbies to the sport, he and Clark are the only members of the local kitesurfing community to ride the wind from Tybee Island to Hilton Head. The trip, which the pair spontaneously embarked upon in September, took more than three hours and covered nearly 40 miles. Instead of making a straight shot to Hilton Head, about 12 miles, Clark and Arnold zig-zagged between islands by taking a course relative to the direction of the wind. Not having a chaser boat to keep tabs on them was admittedly risky, but Clark said the wind remained on their side.

“Thirty minutes into the trip, there was this sand bar out in the middle of the water and we just stood up on it and were like, ‘We’re on our way Hilton Head! Here we come!’ ” he said, grinning when he added, “All the guys that know about the trip are either really jealous or really happy for us.”

Jokes and machismo aside, Clark said local kitesurfers are a tightknit group whose members support each other and want to protect the sport. Though kitesurfing doesn’t require a partner, Clark has never been out alone. And while it’s flattering to have onlookers stare in awe at the tricks the guys are able to land, the group tries to keep their distance from high-traffic beach areas out of respect to the public and to the sport. Their usual kiting spots are at Mitchelville Beach, North Forest Beach and Folly Field.

“When you’re out on the water, you have about 100 yards that you’re responsible for,” kitesurfer Chris Doboszynski said at a recent kiting session on Mitchelville Beach. The Hilton Head resident’s been doing the sport for two years and has a license plate that reads, “WIND MAN.”

“The kitesurfers here will watch carefully in the beginning to see if you’re doing stupid things. They’re merciless, but it’s because they’re responsible,” he said. “They don’t want the sport to get a bad name. You can’t just buy the equipment and go wild.” As five kiters worked their way up and down the shore, impressing a few gaping spectators with their acrobat-like moves and colorful 17-square-meter kites that day, Clark glided onto the beach for a quick check of the time. By 3:25 p.m., he’d already been out for about four hours, and wasn’t looking to stop anytime soon.

“I’m supposed to be at a wedding at 4 o’clock, but I think I’m just going to the reception,” he said, laughing. When the wind is good, you get in what kitesurfing you can. “When you’re out there, you just want to keep going. You won’t know that you’re exhausted until you put your kite down, put your gear away and finally sit down to get something to eat. You’re just so stoked about the session and you have all this energy. I always feel like I’m speaking a different language when I come in for the day. The sport’s incredible.”