I just got back from a week in Miami area where I scouted out all the kiting areas and got out a couple times. Here's a summary of what I found out and where I ended up kiting in case anyone else is interested or thinking of going.
Miami Beach 25th Street - The long standing beach used for kiteboarding in Miami just got closed (Nov. 9th, 2017) due to a close call with a kite almost hitting some folks on the beach: http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/accid ... rs-9813430 So, the next closest option is 46th Street...
46th Street - There’s a car park here next to Indian Beach park. Apparently you can launch here. It looked totally safe to me. I asked a police officer who happened to be there if it was ok to kite and he didn’t know. From what I understand, if there’s no lifeguard then it’s ok. But obviously if the beach is busy with people then you should go elsewhere. When I was there, there wasn’t a person in sight anywhere because it was cloudy and a cold front was coming through. Still, I gave it a pass and went up to 76th Street so I wouldn’t be kiting alone.
North Miami Beach 76th Street - There’s a car park here and easy beach access. But kite launching is limited to a cordoned off area controlled by a licensed kite store and school operator “TKS Watersports Miami” ( http://tksmiami.com/ ). Anyone can launch here but you need to check in at their beach hut. They are supposed to only let people who are IKO Level 3 certified kite but given that it wasn’t busy they let it slide with me only if I demonstrated competence on the water, which was easily done.
It was blowing 22kts and I got out on my 10m for a great 2 hour session. It was cloudy but still warm. I wore a shorty wetsuit but probably didn’t need it. There was great 3-4ft wind swell here with waves breaking far enough from the beach to ride them safely. There were only 4 kites out when I was there (mid-week) and it was easy to ride up wind and get a section of breaking waves all to yourself.
South of Miami Key Biscayne - Crandon Park This is a really nice spot but again kite launching is strictly limited to an area controlled by Miami Kiteboarding school ( https://miamikiteboarding.com/ ). It’s such a nice spot and so popular that there a lots of rules!
Must check in to beach hut before riding Must be IKO Level 3 certified to ride on weekends because it’s so busy Can get certification waived mid-week by having them watch you ride for 30 minutes. The only-20-kites-on-the-water limit is not enforced but the launching area is so limited that it prevents people from getting out in afternoons on crowded weekends anyways.
The water is shallow for quite a distance which makes it ideal for learning.
North of Miami Delray Beach - nice town and beach; apparently good kiting here, unfortunately not for me though. Juno / Jupiter Beach - there’s a perfect stretch of beach between the Juno beach pier and the Jupiter Beach pier. Lots of parking along the beach road. Most people launch from the #33 stairway/shower which is what I did. It’s a nice spot with lots of room to launch. No lifeguard towers.
Juno Beach kiting
June_kite_air-small.jpg (181.59 KiB) Viewed 1748 times
There's no ground swell surf anywhere south of Jupiter/Juno because it’s sheltered by the Bahamas. There looked like good surfing beside the Jupiter pier though: http://video-monitoring.com/beachcams/jupiter/
I was in the Miami / Palm Beach area for one week but only had two days of kitable wind. The weather forecast was always wrong (indicating cloud and rain when it was almost always sunny with occasional cloud). However the standard wind forecast sites were pretty accurate at general wind predictions. I had relatively unstable weather though and was unlucky with wind. Usually there’s more reliable wind in November and through the winter.