Monday, May 23, 2011

Tubamania


One of the sort of legendary windsurfing spots in the bay area is called Tubamancha. It's a legend for a couple reasons:

1. It's difficult to get there.

2. The wind is more offshore and the wave rides are longer than anywhere else around here.

On Sunday, about 20 people made the 2 mile trek (or upwind sail) to the spot to sail the Point Reyes river mouth. Sail sizes were 3.7 to 4.7, with the people on the smaller sizes wavesailing more happily and the people on the larger sizes making the upwind journey much more happily. The waves were between waist and head high mostly, the wind was extremely offshore. The most difficult thing was staying on the wave you caught and not getting blown off the top (wind on the wave face felt like 40).

My sailing was underwhelming, but I still had fun. I was getting cramps from the long walk on my first time out so I had to take a long break. Fortunately I brought a 3.7 too (with much difficulty, since I don't own one of those sweet backpacks), which was nicer to sail. My amazing girlfriend took the hike with me and brought her nice camera into 30 knot sandblasting conditions. The beach there is no fun to hang out on when the wind is blowing that hard, but she hung like a champ!

Below are some of the photos she took, more are here.

Top photo caption: Derek Lueck wins best wipe out. We were all watching and it was a beautiful aerial until the wind ripped the sail out of his hands.

some of the crew
Crissy regular Peter draws a pretty line.

Jeff getting a little under the lip. I really like the way this photo looks

Kevin aerial.

Lee getting sandblasted.

Ants carrying pretzels.

Elliot skies one. Plenty of chances to jump if you had the stones.

8 comments:

Fish said...

Wow - nice looking waves! Definitely looks worth the hike!

chachi said...

Looks epic!

Nes said...

Hey! I get no credit for being the only woman on the water among all you guys?! :)

Catapulting Aaron said...

Nes-- was great to see you up there making the journey, but you're too much of a badass to single out as "I can't believe a girl did it". haha! too much respect, but seriously that was a tough day for everyone out there!

Nes said...

Okay fine! I guess I would rather be the badass as opposed to singled out! :) It was truly a challenging day pushing everything to the limits.

Jason said...

Haha I was surfing chest high, smoking offshore Drakes- could see you goofballs down there!

Jay said...

Vancouver represent! Great to see you out elliot!

rathokan said...

need to get that place on a less windy day! this was my third trip and the least windy of the bunch... would love a mellow 4.7/5.0 sesh there... prolly means more walking.