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Isn't it possible to get the kite flying from the water?
Yes it is, but for beginners a sudden change in the direction of the wind (say from onshore to offshore) can make getting back to shore kind of difficult, unless you have had some sailing experience, especially windsurfing. I have spent many a day in the 80's at Cape Cod beaches watching friends try to learn windsurfing, and then the wind changed to offshore, and it appreared that they were going to go off to Europe as they could not figure out how to "tack" back and forth against the wind, so they could get back to the beach. Most usually slowly paddled back to the beach with the sail rig partially in the water.

Board sailing with the wind is relatively easy to learn. Learning to sucessfully sail off wind or against the wind is a lot harder. It's pretty much the same with kite boarding. Board sailing (wind surfing) was a big deal for my friends store in the 80's. These days he sells few boards, and sells mostly replacement parts for customers existing rigs. Kite boarding is catching on, but he doesn't think it will get as big as windsurfing was in the 80's.