Nucular

April 6th was one of those 3.7/75 kinds of days. Winds in the 30s. 3rd Avenue was littered with ramps and juicy swells. Everyone comes in shaking their head around 6:00, blown off the water.

It. Was. Awesome.

By my estimation we get 12 or fewer of those days a year, but the money spent on your teeny board and teeny sail still feel well worth the price.

Lots of smiles coming off the water.

A little bit of carnage.

April - North American Windsurfing Month

April seems to be "in season" for most of the country. Over the years I've had numerous conversations with folks about what the best time to visit their spot is to get wind. Almost always April enters the conversation, and almost always I think in the back of my mind: "There is no way in hell I'm leaving (wherever I'm living) during April. It's too good here!"

April is North American Windsurfing Month.

Photo of Pedro, all smiles last April. When the photo was taken he had never made a vulcan. Last session, I saw him make 5 spocks with my own eyes. Unbelievable.

April Fools

Well? Did I trick you?

I'm staying here indefinitely. Job or no job.

Email responses from my friends:

Me: Sad news, check out the blog.
(1 minute later)Kevin: you misspelled Manhattan
(2 minutes later)Jacob: Congrats! Sad to see you go! You've got gear to borrow here!
(3 minutes later)Steve: Go make some money and sail HIHO with me! We'll miss you!
(4 minutes later)Sofy: You guys realize it's almost April 1st?
(5 minutes later)Jacob: *******
Steve: I take it everything back!

I can't pull a prank on these guys to save my life.

Sorry to the folks that legitimately wished me well! To heck with the rest of you!

An Odd Twist of Fate

Just when you've got it all figured out, things change.

It turns out that I've been offered a job within my current company that will be a huge career advancement. It's one of those moments when I really have to do the right thing to keep growing now, or else I could be stuck doing the same thing (that I'm not totally stoked on) for many more years.

The new job has me relocating to the NY Metropolitan area. My home base office will be on Manhattan, but I'll be able to work from home at least a few days a week. On one hand it's sad to leave San Francisco, since it's been so good to me. But otherwise, I'm pretty excited for the change and the big city life. The wind and people have been great out here and I'll forever cherish those memories and relationships, but I'm super excited to see what Long Island has to offer in terms of windsurfing. I can't wait to sail all those -auks and -amptons with the Peconic Puffin crew.

The move is at the end of April. Excited!

Any suggestions for where I should settle that's close to work and windsurfing?

(photo of Ray Armas, NY City Windsurfer catching the subway)

Mount My Mast

Those of you who know me personally would probably agree that I have a pretty crass sense of humor. Something that I got a kick out of that I heard on a television show was:

"Listening to someone's dreams is like flipping through a stack of photos. If you're not in them and no one is naked ... what's the point?"

I sort of have that feeling about windsurfing videos of normal folks. They're coolest to the person who went for the ride so they can relive the moment. There are some good ones out there, particularly if they have decent action and good music.

Nevertheless, I bought a GoPro HD in the hope of making some videos of me and my friends this year. At least they'll be fun to us. Dave from epicsessions gave me a good tip about the mast mount and I tried it out on a gusty day at Haskins this week. My recommendation is to start the video then start multi-tasking on your computer. At least the music kicks ass.

GoPro HD Mast Mount from Catapult Media on Vimeo.

As the season pushes on and gets more consistent, I'll get some better sailing and more angles on these videos.

Thoughts?

March Madness

It's blowing 30 out there, but my team is still in the tournament playing at a time that I know will kibosh any windsurfing I could do.

I'm choosing to watch basketball over windsurfing.

(go gators)

What would have happened...

I woke up around my customary time of 5am this morning to hop on a couple conference calls with folks from the east coast. Of course, before I did that, I checked the wind. By 9AM my calls were over and there was a window of opportunity for me to go windsurfing. I decided to be a good boy and continuing to work, crossing my fingers for the storm to last into the afternoon. Otherwise my morning would have went like this:

9:00 AM - Stop in donut shop to refuel, begin the drive down to Half Moon Bay in terrible stormy conditions.

10:00 AM - Arrive at Half Moon Bay, change into wetsuit.

10:05 AM - Decide to rig 4.7 and 97L board.

10:10 AM - Wind ramps up to 30 average. It's gonna be a big day! Rig down to 3.7/75.

10:15 AM - Derig bigger gear so it doesn't blow away.

10:20 AM - Get to water. Immediately begin slogging but expect that it's just a lull. Denial Stage.

10:25 AM - Continue slogging, commence four-letter dialect use. Anger stage.

10:30 AM - Slog a bit more, consider rigging larger. Bargaining stage.

10:35 AM - Lay in the water waiting for a water start after a failed pivot jibe. Spit up mouthfuls of storm water. Depression Stage.

10:40 AM - Begin swimming back to the beach. Fire copious snot rockets into the sand and hack up chunky bits of runoff for the next 15 minutes. Acceptance Stage.

10:55 AM - Long, slow drive home on wet roads after an unproductive morning. Grief complete.

So I missed this morning, but at least my wetsuit is dry and ready for the next chance.