Dead Island Circumnavigation

Wow, another day with more wind than expected. Yeah, it was only 11-13 knots but that is all I needed with the 9.0 and my new 48cm Makani fin. (Thanks Peter for the recommendation to go bigger.)

I had some of my longest runs possible in our corner of the Bay‎. 4 km back and forth from my start location to the Dead Island channel. I saw our friends heading home and demonstrated to them why waterstarting makes windsurfing easier than uphauling. Then I started working my way upwind toward the Keefer Island range markers. I sent my wife a SPOT message from the place in the middle of that open water where I proposed to her late one night 22 summers ago!

I still think it takes me too many tacks to get upwind. But these were "pump to get planing" winds. Once I worked my way up to the upwind buoy on the craft route that the old ships used to travel, I started heading ‎west. I had a nice run going along what I thought was the sight line but actually wasn't quite upwind enough.

My 9.0 session in the south winds.
I made it all the way round Dead Island! (Albeit slowly for part of the time.)

I started seeing shoals underwater and slowed down south of Dead Island so I wasn't planing anymore. I realized that the wind had dropped but the swells were now huge in the open bay. To top it off, it started raining. I was feeling pretty happy to have my SPOT GPS messaging device with me in case I got into trouble.

I headed to the main boat channel and slowly ran downwind to the Dead Island channel. The wind picked up and I planed into the wind shadow of the island. Another 4 km planing run and I was back to my start point, and did a few more runs to get to a 54 km total for the day.

I was happy to have the SPOT GPS to send messages in case I ran into trouble