It's freakin' Maui, alright?

I've been back from Maui for a week now, and still haven't been able to muster up a post about it. I can't figure out exactly what I can say about Maui, or how I can offer some insight or perspective about it. It's freakin' Maui. It's this tropical paradise that's a 5 hour flight from anything. The water is transparent and teal blue. Giant sea turtles are all over the place. You cruise over big white UFO shaped pieces of coral. You can sail to a variety of reefs where waves pitch and break, or gently crumble, depending on your cup of tea. These waves often jack up on your starboard broad reach so you can fly through as much airspace as your courage can handle. Point towards a flat part of the wave for distance. Point toward the pitchy part if you want to go straight toward the heavens. No need to think about technique for jumping. Just go fast and target something steep.

It feels like windsurfing on a movie set. Maybe that's because of the ingrained images of chase helicopter shots bearing down on Robby and Laird cruising at Mach 1. Maybe it's because you really feel like you've crossed into another dimension of existence. A dimension with warmer, clearer, water. Organized waves bombard all shores a few at a time, but take breaks so you can paddle out to surf them. Unrelenting wind that just finished a 2,000 mile journey fills your sail, accelerating at the finish line stretched across Haleakala and Mauna Kahalawai, Maui's towering twin volcanic mountains.

It's freakin' Maui. Windsurfers talk about it all the time, mostly complimentary, with some squeaky wheels who love to point out so-called shortcomings. The conditions are just like what they look like in the pictures. The weather changes more than you've heard. There's more to do there than you've heard. The locals are nicer than you've heard.

It's mecca for us. If you haven't been there, go. Don't let anyone tell you it's not worth it. If you feel so compelled, face west and pray toward it. If not, hitch a ride on your own one hundred fifty ton interdimensional flying steel tube, sit for several hours and see for yourself.

It's freakin' Maui.





Here are some pictures, since I know that's all most blog browsers look at. I have an addiction to hemorrhoid medicine. See? I'm not afraid to admit that because I know that no one actually reads windsurfing blogs. You're just here for the pictures.

This was a SUP race put on by Naish called the "doggy paddle" for obvious reasons. I drove down to check it out on a windless morning, and it 'twas rather fun.


A sample of what the conditions look like, with blur, at the spot we sailed at Kanaha beach state park. This was a windy day, 4.2 for me. We got a few of these and that really help us learn a lot about which boards ride big vs. small and are controllable overpowered. That's huge for most people because we can't all afford to also have a 70 liter board for nuking conditions.

Windsurfing babe Sierra returned for the 2nd year. She and a few other Mauians helped out with the test, which is very fortunate, since it takes a lot of work riding a ton of boards when one could be going out there just to ride and have fun for yourself.

Ultra-friendly financial guy Canadian Carl Speiss also returned. He's wearing his "I looped today!" smile because I believe this was his first day hucking them. He says I had something to do with inspiring him to go for it, but I think people mainly are telling me that because they say "damnit Aaron sucks, I can do it if he can!" Which is just dandy by me.


I sometimes see some exotic things going on with windsurfing gear in the bay, but if you really wanna see some crazy stuff, check out the beach at Kanaha. Windsurfing tinkerers are everywhere, but Maui has got to be the most concentrated place for these types.

My really great friend Dave Harrell, who flies for American Airlines.

I'm always skeptical when meeting windsurfing legends about what they're really going to be like as people. Francisco Goya is one of the coolest and most friendly people you will ever share a slice of pizza with. Write that down.

The last windy day, and I went back to my old devices. I had a pretty nice Starboard loop attempt on a gusty 23-35 day... went to waterstart, and just was too lazy to get planing before hooking in. Results above, and actually more painful than it looks.



Even better than going to Maui is enjoying it with good friends. Jake helped with the video work and Russel Faurot guest tested from the pro's perspective despite a dinged up ankle. Silly good times are what it's all about, to me.

Lefty Gomez must have been Thinking of Me

...when he said "I'd rather be lucky than good".

Tomorrow I'm leaving for Maui for the 2nd consecutive year to help with the Windsurfing Magazine High-Wind* Board Test. It's a lot of fun, as you would imagine, but it's also a LOT of work.

I'll do my best to make updates -- the short term forecast is for very light wind. Maybe I'll get some surfing practice in and work on my sloggability ratings for the test boards...

September 29th, 2009 - The Exclamation Point

There has been a sense I've been getting of the windsurfing season winding down this month. The common wisdom in the bay area is that if there was a date to pack your gear up for the winter, it's Oct 1st. Normally as that date approaches, sessions are fewer, further between, and a grade less windy than our normal sessions. Think 5.3 or 5.7 instead of the usual 4.2 to 5.0 days. Then mother nature giggles at our hopeless understanding of her and we got one of those fronts yesterday that felt EXACTLY like a really strong spring cold front.

The best place in the bay, from my experience, to catch a big NW is 3rd avenue. The shipping channel isn't too too far, and the water surface gets BIIIIG out there. Estimations for yesterdays' swell size have ranged from head high (from a local gorge snob) to mast high, or double box car high (from a 3rd channel first timer). Another 3rd avenue vet claimed it was the best he's seen in 18 years of windsurfing the spot.

I don't think there is a picture or video out there of really big swell in 3rd avenue. I think only the people who have been out there have any idea what it's like. I considered for a minute taking my waterproof camcorder out there, but there was no way I could sail out there one handed. Even if I strapped it to my arm, I would have been scared sitting in the middle of the chaos out there, just because people were flying all over the place and it's really really easy to lose track of where the other sailors are. It would have been begging to get landed on.

Bay sailors get a lot of grief for their love of "flat water", but let me tell you, the SF Bay can be anything but flat on some days.

What to do while you're injured...

I've been only windsurfing once or twice a week for the last month or so due to a nagging shoulder injury. I've been going to physical therapy a couple times a week to strengthen my left shoulder in preparation for Maui, but my windsurfing days have been very laid back and short. It's a major bummer to be injured at the end of the season, right as I was getting a hold of the forward loop, but I'm finding other ways to distract myself.

When someone is injured, it's really easy to disappear into the abyss of Matlock marathons and competitive eating... but the best thing to do is get out and hold the camera for your friends. Here's a video I put together from a bunch of sessions at Candlestick this month. Late in the season the wind gets lighter and flukier and only a handful of spots work on a regular basis. Candlestick is one of the only spots that works on warm late-season days, so you'll find a healthy crowd there when everything else has more or less shut down. Like every good thing, seasons must come to an end, so it's best to look at each late-season session as a gift. October and November are usually the lowest wind months before our winter storms come through.

September Sessions from Aaron Vieira on Vimeo.

**In this video, I captured Sofy going for a move called the "Toad", which is akin to a clew-first forward, and Kevin grabbing his first on film shakas, and leche (aka switch stance kono). He's been doing those tricks for a year, but no one has been holding the camera. It's awesome to get to sail with skilled freestylers so much, and it's been a huge reason that I've been able to make so much progress this year.

ppps. For the record... "squishing" people is far from being my original concept... for a good laugh: I CRUSH YOUR HEAD

Feels like losing your virginity... without the guilt and awkwardness...

There are a lot of highs in windsurfing, which is ultimately why we windsurf. We are substances abusers just like any crack head. The primary difference is that the source of our sensations isn't a dirty meth lab or the jungle of a 3rd world country. The source of our drug is within us. It probably looks like little drops of fluid being released from tiny glands hidden in different parts of our skulls that feeds a rush of feeling through the soluble contents of our bodies. It's a feeling we call "stoke" and it unites us as windsurfers.

Just like they say, there is nothing like your first high. Most people can distinctly remember their first day planing. If you've ever planed out of a jibe, you will completely remember that feeling, too. Two of my friends recently completed some very impressive firsts. Juan learned to do a spock 540 and Asma learned the grubby. I captured them doing so last Friday at Candlestick Park.






Jacob, aka "Lofty" lent me his camera to snap these photo sequences, then went the extra mile spending his time stitching the pictures together... outstanding work.

Also, he put together a goofy little clip from the same day of some true "buttsailing":

Regarding that Windsurfing Magazine Stuff

Dearest Blog Readers (aka: the other bloggers and my mom),

Thanks for your courageous support during this trying time in the world of windsurfing. The printing press at a nationally syndicated magazine known as Windsurfing Magazine made a terrible error and mistakenly published a piece that I wrote. Kiteboarders everywhere rejoiced this aquatic apocalyptic event that would surely end our sport forever, opening up endless oceans and lakes of dangle-room across the world. The lawyers of the international shark coalition are looking for loopholes in order to assure my eventual consumption by chumming for what I've done to the supply of their food source. The American Red Cross has deployed Disaster Mental Health (DMH) Counselors across the country in local windsurfing stores, who are on hand with anti-depressants.

OK OK OK.

Yes, I'm the guy who wrote the "Confessions of the Human Catapult" article in WSing. It's been a year in the making, and editor Josh Sampiero had to threaten my family in order to get me to finally get something done on it. In addition, I have to give him a lot of credit for making it somewhat readable and qualifying as the "English Language". Thanks to everyone who enjoyed it to some extent. For me, reading it is like coming home to cat vomit on the floor and deciding to pick through it with a needle to look for a newspaper clipping you had set aside earlier. I guess that's what they say about reading your own writing. Actually, "they" probably don't use the cat vomit analogy because "they" probably have manners.

In any case, the positive reactions from my efforts make me feel encouraged to focus a bit more on the writing on my blog and the other outlets. Stay tuned for some slightly less sucky prose.

Yours in Robby,

Aaron, the catapult

ps. James Douglass, a far better windsurfer and writer also had a sweet article about jibing published in the same issue.

pps. The issue in the picture above is not the issue I'm in, but I used that picture instead because it had a cute girl in it.

ppps. Dude, nobody cares, shut up.

pppps. Hey, this is my post-script dammit! Who's typing on my blog?!

ppppps. This is your conscience.

pppppps. Oh, you again, yeah a lot of good you've done me so far.

ppppppps. Shut up and book your ticket to Maui.

pppppppps. FINALLY something we can agree upon!

Getting Home at Treasure Island

Treasure Island is probably the best and most consistent windsurfing on the San Francisco Bay, ESPECIALLY late in the season. My friends have been religiously going there for years in August and September because when other spots start shutting off or becoming more intermittent, TI becomes the "epicest*". The fetch at Treasure Island is 4 or 5 miles. The swell has that same amount of space to organize, space out, and otherwise become beautiful.

But before you wipe your drool and grab your gear from this description, I must inform you of dear old caveat emptor. Treasure Island has the worst launch of the whole bay. A 25-30 yard u-shaped wind eating jetty from which you launch in the downwind armpit. Launching goes straight downwind in annoying fickle wind. Thus, coming in requires going directly upwind in garbage wind. Also, if you're sailing TI, you'll probably want to be on a pretty small board so you can make the most of the conditions beyond the shadow. Most of us choose to doggy-paddle home at the end of our session, but a handful feel as though they must SAIL their SAILBOARD in. I've never seen a shadow sailor beat a swimmer, but they sure are fun to watch:

Untitled from Aaron Vieira on Vimeo.

The other thing to note is that if something were to go wrong, it could go pretty darn wrong. A couple days ago a few guys went out at TI, then got swallowed up by fog. They all made it home, but they all also had pretty scary experiences finding their way back.(Link to those stories) If your gear breaks down between Treasure Island and Angel Island, it could potentially take you a very long time to get back to dry land in any direction. Not to mention the large tug boat traffic, bridge construction traffic, and 25-knot-traveling commuter ferries.

TI is the best spot in the bay, but ya gotta respect it.









*epicest is a term coined by the German Shepherd for "most epic". Pronounced with a hard "c".