I like to look at the windsurfing year as a predetermined number of sailable and unsailable that you could potentially windsurf. The wind gods have their annual meeting and Parcheesi tournament shortly after Christmas and they sit down with the list of everyone who is going to windsurf and assign a ratio to those people of the number of planing days they'll be awarded, in terms of a ratio. So they pull my file and determine that I'm going to get about a 2/7 chance of planing every time I could windsurf. Since the ratio is fixed before the year starts, I'm not too upset when I drive 6 hours down to Avon to watch my reflection on the sound. It just means I'm going to get some REAL wind on another day.To the point: Windfest 2008 in Hatteras wasn't real windy this year. I had one good morning of 7.5 sailing, and other than that... it was a great weekend of beer-drinking and general good-weather revelry. Here are some unorganized bullet point observations:
1. Today is James Douglass' birthday. Everyone run over to his blog and wish him happy birthday. While everyone else was complaining about the lack of wind, James brought real live human females along and taught them how to windsurf. (!!!)
2. I met Mac, the Water Turtle, super nice guy... and coincidentally we work for the same company. I heard the Peconic Puffin was there at the same time, but his publicist didn't think hanging out with the other bloggers would be beneficial for his image. He'll be known as "Hollywood Puffin" from here on for the purposes of this blog...
3. The surf was 8-10 feet easily by the lighthouse. Pretty awesome out there. I brought my body board but chickened out of swimming out and enjoyed watching the local badasses show us how it's done.
4. Paul Richardson is a cool dude despite the fact that a 12 year-old girl can out-drink him.
5. WET is probably one of the coolest and most cohesive windsurfing clubs I've been around, and I've been around quite a few.
6. Stand-Up-Paddle boarding is actually really cool. A super nice guy let me take his out when the wind was calm and the water was super clear. It was a great workout, and overall a great experience. I've been looking at it skeptically from the outside for about a year, and now that I've tried it I "get it".
7. Despite my efforts, I didn't get to demo a single board. I found that pretty disappointing.
10 comments:
Charge it to the game. What would the ratio of good days to bad days for kayaking in DC be?
Yo Aaron, nice writeup! If I ever do meet Hollywood Puffin I'm gonna get his autograph to prove it.
Good times at windfest Aaron, when i get back up in the metropolitan area ill let you know so we can do some sailing together....hopefully they'll be wind like at frisco lol
Aaron, I am bringing the kayak and a biking helmet to DC. Let's go big. My email is christopherwkennedy@gmail.com. My cell is 757-619-6825
My drinking performance was poor. I think I must have caught a bug, or something.
Nice post. Barring Sat morning, I had a real good time and I'm looking forward to the next one.
Chris -- you're right, getting skunked is pretty rare in a kayak in DC... but it just ain't as fun as windsurfing from my experience. I'll shoot you an email so we can paddle up here.
John -- good meeting you, I'll show you the NoVA spots next time you're up here...
Paul -- I was only joshin' ya about the beer thing. Look at the bright side, at least you don't drink too well like I do...
Little Falls is at 67,000cfs, which is big. I have the biking helmet. Let's do this this afternoon.
I fired my publicist years ago when she couldn't get me on Oprah (who I used to work with.)
(end nonsense)
I was walking around Avon with a puffin T shirt hoping one of you guys might spot me (but not throw things.) Mac and I were trading emails and phone calls but managed to miss each other (I was also in touch with OBX Bill.) The hitch was that my wife okayed my Hatteras trip, but limited my days (she has that right as Mrs. Puffin) and I needed to leave on Friday. Of course I caught my 2/7ths of wind earlier in the week (3.4, 4.0, 5.0 sailing). But hey I rarely get lucky in Hatteras!
Sorry to have missed the summit. Another time perhaps. I'm hoping to get down there again in the next month.
Way to go on the teaching, James! I have one student myself (next door neighbor's daughter) and am working on getting more newbies on the water.
Aaron, Nice write-up. I finally got mine up...let me know what you think of the video. Has new helmetcam footage. It was very cool to meet you and James as well. One of the best weeks I ever had in OBX was in early May. We had SW 15-25 sunny & 70s every single day for the week...sailed 7 days straight! May you get it too.
Aaron,
I started up a blog of my own since its the cool windsurfing thing to do these days lol. CHeck it out johngelinne.blogspot.com
Post a Comment