Since it's before lifeguard hours and the tide was low you should go to the Jericho pier if you are foiling, you get deep water without the walk. Also, if you are wing surfing then you don't need to worry about lifeguard hours as it's allowed to launch from the West side of Jericho pier just as the windsurfers are.
For chasing your board down, it's not actually the wind that takes your board so fast away from you, it's the wave action on the foil. It's basically a motor driving the board straight downwave regardless of the wind direction. With my hydrofoil setup I have to swim full bore to catch my board if the wing stays submerged after a fall. If the kite is in the air you can just loop your way back to it though.
If you watch the fall at
9:11 here you can see how fast my board gets away.
WB is pretty shit for windsports because of the hill effect from the cliff. It's bad from the East tower at Tower Beach all the way to Wreck. If it's low tide it's not bad because you'll be 300m upwind of the cliff.