A Year (Windsurfing) en Provence: Baja inspires an AWT amateur to go to Ho'okipa

Friday, October 25, 2013

Baja inspires an AWT amateur to go to Ho'okipa

I had so much fun at the Matt Pritchard wave camp in Baja, that I kind of got talked into signing up for the AWT Aloha Classic. Here’s how it happened:

I’d been hoping to get to an American Windsurfing Tour event someday. When windsurfing buddy Chris invited a bunch of us to be part of his 40^th birthday bash in Hawaii I jumped at the chance since the Maui AWT event was also happening at the same time and I was looking forward to watching the pros.

In Baja, someone had suggested that I actually enter the Maui event. There is an amateur division after all. I’m frankly scared of the fall and winter waves at Ho’okipa, having only sailed there once in the summer 18 years ago. I've felt fine leaving the best spot in the world to the pros.

When I heard that the PWA pros were also coming to Maui to join the AWT, I emailed event organizer Sam Bittner to say that I might have signed up, but I was sure that they would not have room for a bad amateur now that the best from the world were attending. But Sam was insistent and signed me up anyway.

Yesterday I was watching the first day of sailing one the AWT live stream while finishing up emails into the wee hours at my desk at work. And now here I am on a plane to Maui, editing the video clips I collected while in Baja. Check out the video:

Punta San Carlos wave camp with Matt Pritchard inspires an AWT amateur from Canadian Guy on Vimeo.

https://vimeo.com/77825561

I can’t believe I’m actually one of 130 contestants that include Robby Naish and so many other great windsurfers I’ve read about and watched over the years.