Hi All,

A couple of us out here on the Cocos Islands were very good friends of the late Bob Dawson and we sadly missed if funeral. We are putting on a memorial event in his honour to show our respect and have a bloody good time - as he would have wanted.

In Bobs spirit, its not going to be serious, the activity is more important than the detail. Flying kites and getting a thrill is what its all about.

The Federal Police here are kind enough to have offered to help us with their radar gun, and we've got a good forecast for the coming days. Wednesday is the penciled date.

There is an unbelievably good spot here for speed runs, with a weird spongy weed growing in a silty muddy bottom with no rocks, just a few turtles. mid tides are about thigh deep but there are no ripples due to the weed which sits a few cm under the surface. Its a very big area so any direction works. You can keep bearing away as you pick up speed - no need to follow a sand bar.

Its not likely that anyone not already on the island will be able to attend - unless you get tomorrow flight i guess, but i wanted to post this message to let friends of Bob know that his good spirit lives on.

Perhaps this will become an annual event here - lets see how it goes on Wednesday.

ha ha yeah its a bit like that. there is a 50km/hr speed limit - but thats on the "highway". In town its 30km/hr. will let you know how it went.

OK. So here's the scoop....

Everything went perfectly to the unplan. Vince from the AFP came down to the Meterology Property on cue ( he will be our next victim tomorrow - lesson booked at 10am). The paint on the banner dried about the same time. The kiters arrived also at the same time and it was on.

The wind was a steady (ish) 15 -21knots.

The first few runs were an exercise in calibrating our direction. The bear away needed to be directed straight at the radar gun.

Some of the guys failed to bring the right gear so all sorts of Bobisms came out - tongue in cheek reasons for not quite getting up to speed. The wind has definitely backed off. I'm 25kgs heavier than you. My fins are bigger. Your kites this and that. the waters too shallow now my fins were dragging. My run wasnt quite at the rader gun so therefore im faster than you. All this sort of stuff.

At the end of the day the results were....

Mike on the 11m Ozone Edge went Mach 0.049 (60km/hr) (32.39knots)
Jen on the 9m North Rebel went Mach 0.044 (54km/hr) (29.16knots)
Tom on the 11m Ozone Edge went Mach 0.042 (52km/hr) (28.08knots)
Dave on the 11m Ozone Edge went Mach 0.04 (49km/hr (26.46knots)
John on the 13m Crossbow went Mach 0.038 (46km/hr) (24.84knots)
Graham on the 11m Ozone Edge went Mach 0.033 (41km/hr) (22.14knots)

Munz went 45km/hr
Kate went 26km/hr
Celia went 26km/hr
and there were a few mouths that went a whole lot quicker.

Thanks to the friendly Police here on the Cocos, Harry and Vince who took time out of their day to help us.

Thanks to John Tunnicliff for helping us out with the preparations and to Tim at the Airport for letting it all go ahead near the airport. Also thanks to Met Mike for having us on his stretch of turf.

Bob was a true legend and drew respect from everyone he met. Many good memories and hopefully more to come in his name.

Rest in Peace mate.

Ha - as Bob would say!

Good one Mike, Juls Peace and I attended the memorial at Sawtell SLSC. It was an extremely moving, sensitive and emotional event, with approx 150 people from all over the East Coast attending. Bob was extremely well known and respected locally, everyone knew him or had heard of him and he will be greatly missed by all him family and friends.
We flew kites after the ceremony, Bob's son Craig joined in for a team fly with Mike Richards and Roger Martin, the other 2 members of team OceanBreeze.
Craig gave me and many others quite a jolt, from a distance he looks quite like Bob in build and physical appearance, although he does not have that stash or porn star smile LOL's.

I'm not sure if you ever came to one of Bob's Kiteflyers Picnics that he held at Sawtell headland? Some of us want to resurrect that event as an annual memorial event to celebrate all that is good about kiting. The mateship, co-operation and sheer joy o kiteflying with you friends. We are proposing to have an award at the event that will be called the Dawson - it will be decided by a secret panel of secret judges. The award will be for the person that does the best "Dawson" which is to help someone, or who inspires others by their humor and happiness.

Here are some pics from the Memorial, I would really like to get some of yours especially the one with the sign in it to add to the testimonial article I've written and that just keeps growing and that we plan to place onine on a website dedicated to Kite Legends!

Mike Richards (Kite Magic) Roger Martin and Craig Dawson

The Ocean Breeze kites in close formation (It was an amazing show, almost like Bob was there, Craig had never flown with Roger and Mike

Bob, and his ashes (in the large urn)

Chris Robson (windspeed kites) Warren McIntosh (MEFM kites) moi, Julie Nagorcka and Peace McCormack

Some of Bobs favourite and best kites, his board, etc

Bobs office notice boards and mementos as they were in his workshop

Bobs medals, the pic on the right under the medals is Ben Wilson riding one of Bobs "Woodies"

The afterparty kiteflying in the 5-6 knot easterly

Group shot of many friends and family

The group shot just kept growing spontaneously! We all left shortly afterwards on a happy note and with many hugs, as Bob would have expected!