Kiteboard lost at sea for a week travels 20 miles and is reunited with owner

“I wanted to share with you a story with a bad start but a happy ending,” Charles Littwin of Mooresville, N.C., wrote in an e-mail to The Island Free Press this week.

Littwin says he lost his kiteboard at sea at the Avon Pier last week.

He writes that it’s a long story, but the short version is that the wind was blowing side offshore, and his rig had too much power because his kite was too big.  He was headed toward the Avon Pier when his problems began

“Safety first,” he says, “so I abandoned my board after I fell off it and let the kite pull me back to shore.”

He looked for his board for a half hour that day and rode his beach bike from the Avon Pier to Cape Point the next day, but had no luck finding it.

He says he was in shock when one week later Eddie Skakle of A.S. Austin Company in Hatteras village called his phone number listed on the board to say he found the board on the south shore of Cape Point.

“The board spent a week at sea and traveled 20 miles,” says Littwin. “Thank goodness for the two days of southerly winds and the force of the Gulf Stream!”

“Skakle even gave me a 22-inch puppy drum that he caught the day he found my board.”

“A miracle on the island for sure!” says Littwin. “Thank you, Eddie!