Just as it was time to go back for dinner, the wind picked up again and I headed out on the trusty Skate 108 and the Idol 5.6. Even with the sail poorly tuned I still felt comfortable. The boom was squeaking, which was a bit unnerving but I later noticed that my outhaul lines were crossed - a small point but worth fixing for the future.
Smelling wood smoke drifting over the water from a local cottage or sauna made me realize that it was really cold. I saw a chimney smoking downwind from me as well. It was 8c air and 15c water. But I was so excited to be out and and planing feeling super comfortable on a short board that it didn't matter. And my Flashbomb 3/2 wetsuit was nice and warm.
After at least 20 minutes successfully tacking and jibing without falling in at all, I tried a Vulcan. It wasn't so bad falling in, so I tried a downwind and upwind 360 in the straps and fell on both of those too. I kept sailing and then was going to head in. But with the high water I was actually able to plane right to the launch pad and even past it. So I did that twice!
No data from the session as I forgot my GPS watch but I'm likely to remember this perfect first southwest day of the year. I'm guessing it was almost and hour and 20 km since I was planing so much of the time. Luckily my wife caught some photos as I was coming inshore so far.
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| Planing inshore between islands! |
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| Heading back out - the turbines are facing SW! |
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| Planing again |
This is what the weather radar looked like for most of the day. Definitely handy to be out there with gear all rigged in the shed to score the nice hour of wind between systems.
Like the astronauts who left earth yesterday, I felt lucky to be able to escape from so much bad news out there. Not bad, 6 sessions on the water during a difficult May 2020.
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