Thursday, July 10, 2008

Haskins, Housekeeping, Hot Weather and other excuses to use alliteration.

Here is some very exciting news for humancatapult.blogspot readers: I bought a camera and will actually be hosting real. actual. non-stolen. content.

On Tuesday and Wednesday I sailed a spot which has been called "Haskins", I'm guessing because it's located on Haskins Way in South San Francisco. I could be wrong. These have been days when the [nameless forecasting company].com forecasters have said "don't bother windsurfing today! It's gonna suck everywhere! Stay home and paint your nails!" But here in the bay area, we've got a little something called "microclimates", which are a lot like other climates but smaller. When it gets really hot (ie. 80 degrees to bay area folk, ha!), the wind is sometimes killed and it never really happens. But when there is even a slight seabreeze coming from the right direction, there is a chance it will start ripping through a couple of hills nearby and actually create strong enough wind to play with. These breezes are gusty but they still work pretty nicely. Monday was meh 5.0 at Candlestick, Tuesday was overpowered 5.0 at Haskins, and Wednesday was slightly powered 5.0 at Haskins.

The water at Haskins is super smooth. Apparently this place is only really good to sail on a big flood tide because it can be shallow. It is a tidal lagoon that has been overhead deep every day I've been there so far though. It smells like coffee, I think there is a coffee roasting factory nearby. The water quality is somewhat questionable. On Tuesday, the tip of my tongue started feeling a little numb. I'm sure it's nothing.

Now for the housekeeping. Since other bloggers like to record data and report the number of times they sailed in a month, I'm going to shamelessly steal the idea and give you a report of my first 30 windsurfing days in San Francisco (starting June 8).

By the numbers:

16 days windsurfing
9 days traveling/out of town
13 days on a 5.0 (largest sail)
14 days on a 104L board
2 days on a 85L board
9 different spots sailed

Now here's some more pictures of Haskins with some captions:

Kevin Kan sets up for a freestyle move right in the face of a 747.
The 747 had no response. It got served.


Unidentified Sailor sails in front of giant tanks full of unidentified liquids.
I'm sure it's something healthy and non-contaminating like Fresca.

Kevin prepares to rip the clew through the wind on a Spock.
Believe it or not I was holding the camera straight, and the world actually went slanted for a moment.

Hasta!

Correction: I believe this might actually be a grubby in the last photo...

4 comments:

Waterturtle said...

I love Fresca and I'm sure its nothing wrong with your tongue either. Keep sailing with those rose colored glasses....I think the health benefits of windsurfing far outweigh the water quality issues!

James Douglass said...

The 747 says watch out, cuz next time he's gonna "bring it"

SlideHappySailor said...

Glad your out there killin' it! Here in Miami I caught ONE day of decent wind since the trip to Hatteras in May. A lack of beach chatter has led me to trolling windsurfing blogs just to remind myself there will be wind someday.. Keep sailing/posting!

Message brought to you by the UglyJiber's younger brother.

Lano said...

Have you thought that the 'Microclimate' you mentioned could be caused by 747 take off jet wash? Just a thought :)

Sydney Australia, sailors use the jet wash from the airport in botany bay for a bit of extra powerup :)

...and sailing in coffee, could windsurfing get any better?