Vanessa comes home from Jibe City!

Teaching my niece Vanessa in 1996!

If you've been to Jibe City in Bonaire for an ABK camp in the last 5 years you've likely met my always smiling niece Vanessa.

We all went down to Bonaire for a family windsurfing trip in 2008 and she wound up staying there for 5 years. Vanessa worked in the shop at Jibe City, taught windsurfing and met a great guy!

Well she's back in Toronto now, and she and I finally caught a windsurfing session together back up on Georgian Bay. This is where I taught Vanessa to windsurf many years ago (see photo).

This weekend there wasn't supposed to be much wind, so when the southwest flow started building on Saturday around 4pm, I packed up a few boards and sails and headed out to the Bay.

 

Not a great wind, but enough!

I rigged first and sailed alone on my new Ray 122 and my 7.0 for 45 minutes. Then Vanessa came out and joined me on the Skate 108 and Duke 6.2. That is my favorite combo to use but it wouldn't have been enough for me.  But in the 15-19 knot winds, Vanessa had some great runs.  She then tried out the Techno 148 and rocked that board too!

It was a huge thrill for me to be out sailing with someone that I taught and windsurfing became such a big part of her life. It was also just great to have someone to sail with. You can tell by the pictures that we had a lot of fun! And yes, the photos were taken by Len, the great guy she met in Bonaire, who is up here now with her.

I'm looking forward to some more sessions back home here with Vanessa!

The last image here is of my GPS trails. I wound up hitting 51.9 km/h, which is the fastest speed I think I've hit ever?  And that was just my second day on the new board. The Garmin website says the weather at that point was 15c and 19 km/h wind - I think it was more like 19 knots. I sailed a total of 46 km in the 2 hours and was pleasantly sore the next day. 

My GPS trail and 51.9 km/h top speed.