I’d love a way to connect with friends to plan kiting sessions (etc.). I know I can use fb for this, but want to keep the engagement on talksurf. Hoping to plan a downwinder with friends. Any suggestions?
I’ve been thinking of doing some downwinders too; I can walk home from Waihee beach, but it’s not a great place to land a kite, for a variety of reasons. Waiehu is better, and would be a nice ride from Kite Beach.
What’s the deal with kiting down past the airport? According to http://mauikitesurf.org, we have to stay 2 miles offshore at the end of the runway. That’s pretty darn far out. I guess Lanes to Baldwin is a good ride though…
I like downwinding from Baldwin to Naish beach because the reefs keep the water less choppy, and it’s fun to play in the waves. If you head to outer sprecks and Uppers, it’s pretty far off the runway. If an aircraft is low enough at that point for a kite to be a problem, that pilot probably has more serious issues. If you really have it together you leave a spare set of slippers at Naish, and have some sort of ride ready. I’ll sometimes use email for getting kiting friends together. There’s also a new app for this called Findy: https://www.facebook.com/appcenter/354986367951475
Yup, Findy is great to discover friends from FB who kite, and it’s location based so you can see if they are around! As a communication tool you can message kiters, and if you want to plan and let everyone know at once, you can broadcast a shout-out indicating the place & time, it sends a push notification to kiters nearby 
Check it out at http://findyapp.com