DOUBLE SECRET COASTAL SPOT

This guy, he got an aerial, then tweaked it.

At the end of last month a few of my "flatwater sailing" buddies and I headed to a spot whose name I dare not reveal. I will tell you it rhymes with "Schmavenport Glandings". It was a month ago, so I don't remember very much about it. The pictures tell me that the waves were occasionally head high, it was sunny and a bunch of my friends made it out. I'm pretty sure this was the day I buckled my freewave 86.

Anyway, I'm sure you don't care about anything I write here, so I'll just link you to the rest of the photos, if you're the kind of dude who likes looking at windsurfing photos.

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.

The Punta San Carlos Video

These have been done many times with many awesome angles. Hope you enjoy mine.

We took like 50 gigs of video and this is what I came up with. Lots of awesome stuff from each rider didn't make the 6 minute version. If I had all the time in the world I would make each individual a yearbook of the waves they caught.

Hope you all enjoy watching it a hundredth the amount I enjoyed making it.

Windsurfing is Front Page News

If you're on this blog, you're probably pretty well-connected to windsurfing web content (because this is virtually the end-of -the-internet). So, it's probably not news to you that the American Windsurfing Tour has kicked off this weekend at a spot close to my home, Waddell Creek. I just got home from spectating on Friday and Saturday night and I've just been blown away by the level of sailing, the stoke in the air, and the efficiency the contest has been run with. Heat after heat, nearly all the single and double elimination has been completed on two consistently windy days save the Expert Men's Double.

This event has been great for the exposure of windsurfing. As you can see, Russ Faurot got the front page of the local paper with a beautiful backloop shot. The coastal highway that passes by Waddell gives thousands of people a front seat view of what high-level windsurfing is all about. As a person whose inspiration to learn windsurfing came from seeing a pro freestyle contest (Calema Midwinters 2001), I love to see a huge crowd of inspired people watching badass windsurfing.

Speechless

(photo by KK)


The trip to Punta San Carlos was probably the best windsurfing trip I've ever taken, and I've taken quite a few. I've given a little thought as how to summarize the trip, but I haven't been able to cohesively put together thoughts that express just how good the trip was. I sailed 3.7, 4.2, 4.7, 5.0 and 5.6. I rode all of my boards. I sailed and surfed 2 or 3 sessions a day. It was awesome.

I've got lots of photos to share and lots of video to edit. Unfortunately when I get back from trips I'm too busy to do the little extras like blogging until I can get settled in. In the mean time, Kevin Kan from Sunset Sailboards put up a facebook album (many, probably most of the photos were taken by yours truly).

Looks like it's windy everywhere this time of year. Hope everyone is scoring.

A few photos submitted by Brian Watson of the LA area... thanks!

some size out there, even at the beach break at times

Lots of chances to try to hit lips, etc, and no real fear of anything getting broken or getting injured.

Not many jumping opportunities, but now and againThis is what happens when a good wavesailor hits the lip.

This is what happens when I try to.

Lucas and Aaron go to Mexico

A short story:

In 2004 I moved to Washington, DC after finishing college In Florida. I was an intermediate windsurfer: I could plane in the footstraps, I was getting my waterstarts dialed and I had survived a jibe or two. I sent out an email to the Baltimore Area Boardsailing Association listserve introducing myself and asking "does anyone windsurf around here? Where and when?"

Lucas sent me an email saying, "I'm about the same level as you and I live in the same town of Falls Church, we should probably go windsurfing together." We set a date for the following Saturday and drove to the Belle Haven Marina, which is located on the Potomac River a few miles south of Alexandria, VA. We pulled up to the Marina at exactly the same time, got out of our cars and eyed each other quizzically.

We both were driving 1997 Volkswagen Golf 4-door GL's. We both had these big wide boards strapped to the top of our compact cars. We were around the same age and we both were starving to get on the water. We paid the 5 dollar launching fee and made our way down to the dock to get out there.

It was immediate and obvious that Lucas and I would become great friends. We spent the next few years getting probably less than 10 sessions a year around DC with its light and fickle winds. We would take vacations down to Hatteras and escape for weekends in the Dewey Beach area. We would get maybe 25 sessions a year at the most and it was hard to make drastic improvements in our sailing. He got me into whitewater kayaking for a season, then I picked up and moved to the Bay Area. Eventually we both agreed that windsurfing is way more fun. I'm working on getting him to move out this direction.

Lucas is getting married this summer to an awesome girl (who has been learning to windsurf ?!). She's planing and harnessing like a champ, I think her waterstarts are soon coming as well. He asked me to be in the wedding party so of course the first thing that came to my mind was "BACHELOR PARTY!!!" But it's neither Lucas' or my style to hang out at strip clubs blowing money on lap dances and $10 beers. Instead, we're going to Punta San Carlos for a week of surfing, windsurfing and living like cavemen.

Kevin and Juan are joining us. I'm bringing many, many cameras. Hopefully I'll have a couple things to throw up on the blog when it's all over with.

4.7, 3.7, 4.2, 4.2

Those were my last four size selections which means it's early spring in the bay area.

Saturday was a party at Candlestick. In the morning we did a beach clean up, then in the afternoon we were treated for the deed with some strong winds. There were probably 20 small sails on the water. The water state was pretty messy, so there were a lot of freestyle tricks being attempted, but not a lot of tricks being made (except by super skilled Sofy).

I put some more photos up here if you're interested.