Plummet said..
Surfing action per hour is too low for me.
Paddle out, bashing through surf to sit and wait.
Wait for the set then wait for your turn in the line up.
There's too much waiting and paddling for 10-20 seconds of glory every 10 minutes or so.
I want action. Kitesurfing gives you action on the way out and way back in. It almost non stop fun once rigged up.
So when theres no wind i look for a more action packed sport. For me that's mountain biking.
Soooo many good comments in this thread. And really all of them are valid. Plummet put it to the point for me though.
What I would add is this: Surfing is a lot harder. It requires an extraordinary amount of effort to become good, especially in less than swell (excuse the pun) conditions. If I lived in the Mentawais, I'd love nothing more than Surfing. Aussie breaks are generally not that good and way too crowded.
With surfing, unless you start from a very early age, and later are not too tall or too heavy, you won't ever master it. Kitesurfing is much easier to learn even later in life.
One last note I would make is that kitesurfing is a much more social sport. People are super helpful mostly, happy to chat and just hang out with at the beach. To me it's part of the fun. Surfing is super competitive, no chatting, no sharing, very ego driven.
Sailing is totally different to kitesurfing and surfing a wave, and cant be compared in any way.
