After a couple of wonderful days at Jibe City I thought it was time to give The Frans Paradise a try. Five years ago it was basically a shack on the beach at the end of the Sorobon road but already then lot of the best sailors were already starting to practice their freestyle in the nice little flatwater bay there.
I heard that they have new buildings and their rental gear was first rate. Also, a couple of people I know were launching from there. So it was a logical place to start my day. Taty was interested to see pictures of Vanessa & Len and remembers them. He hooked me up with a Duotone Unit 5m and the smallest board I’ve ever launched on! A 97 L with a tiny looking front wing - I never took a photo! I got going up on it and realized it didn’t have footstraps. I found that a little bit of a challenge because I am used to riding with my feet in straps. It was interesting because being strapless does make switching your feet a bit easier. It does also make switching your feet seem like what you should be doing on every jibe and so I worked on foot switches a bit but didn’t feel comfortable about it.
 |
| Ready for my morning wingfoil session! |
I then got a couple of jibes in a row, but the wind dropped off for the mid day lull and it got a lot harder to get going. I stopped in at the sandy point where Charles Dasher (from Aruba days 30 years ago) was teaching a lesson. He uses Bluetooth headsets to chat with students and I realized that I definitely need remote headsets like he uses for the Launch Pad Windsurf Academy when I will be teaching back in Canada this summer.
 |
| My morning GPS wing foil track |
 |
| Spent some time watching Dasher coaching And then still couldn’t get going… |
Lunch was a delicious fresh tuna wrap from the food truck there. (Without paying said the Brazilian guy: “just on account pay me when you’re getting ready to leave”).
I met up with Phil and Jenny who I haven’t seen since IWT events 6 years ago? We chatted for a while over lunch and by 1pm Canadian Phil had arrived ready to go wind foiling. Taty hooked me up with his IQ looking Starboard wind foil and huge 167 L future fly board. I was very nervous about having a catapult and smashing the nose of that board as there was no deviator or nose protection. So my first several runs were very tentative, touching down a lot getting used to the board.
 |
| Time to Windfoil |
 |
| Phil is ready |
 |
| The gear |
 |
| Shadow selfie |
 |
| Working my way around Lac Bay |
 |
| Lots of time on foil - not many foiling jibes on unique rental gear |
Eventually I was getting my front foot in the straps and then spent some time fixing the back foot straps so I could use them too. I wound up going up and downwind several times And it was great to have Phillip to cheer each other when we occasionally crossed paths. If we had been smart, we would’ve tried racing each other to get a bit more practice for when will likely meet again in July in Kingston.
 |
| Private gear storage |
 |
| Fran’s rental locker Lots of nice gear but not much demand for windfoiling? |
 |
| Wingfoil then windfoil then a walk around the hotel grounds |
I wound up doing 25 km and by the end of that was feeling tired enough that it was time to call it a day. I also had something weird happening with my right toe when I put it into the too tight footstep at one point I can’t tell whether it cramped or did something else but glad it was ok for a nice evening walk back at the hotel.
The wind looks like it’s dying over the next couple of days so I’m hoping to get an early morning session tomorrow and then we’ll see where we go from there. Oh, and I saw at least four turtles while I was wind foiling!
Jen and I enjoyed snacking on our Dutch cheese and other nibblies back at the hotel and headed off for a good sleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment