I woke up in San Diego and met fellow Baja travelers Sandra and Georgia who were heading to Solosports to cheer on their son/brother Alex. We caught our small plane at Brown field and started our flight to San Carlos.
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| Landing on the dirt runway at Solosports |
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| One of KP's nice moves that got great marks from me and the other judges! |
At breakfast I met Dutch windsurfer Arriane Aukes who knows my niece Vanessa from Bonaire. Not such a small world really.
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| The event format |
Mellow afternoon waiting for our Amateur heats to start. I even got in a quick first session for myself during a break in the judging to get the cobwebs out. But then the action got going with the finals for the women and men.
After the crowning of the winners, there was a real party atmosphere in camp. I fell asleep listening to the international group of windsurfers singing songs at the bar.
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| The group shot! |
Egg burritos for breakfast and everyone was talking about the upcoming eclipse. I created a small viewing piece by using a hole cutter in a piece of paper, but the grommet holes in the roof tarps provided an even better way to see the roughly 1/4 coverage of the sun by the moon.
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| The crescent of the eclipse as seen through a piece of paper with a hole in it on the round logo of the IWT. |
A full schedule of heats were planned for the day and started right at 10:40. I wasn't judging, I now had at least 4 heats to compete in, 2 in amateurs and 2 in masters.
I found some really good waves in my first two heats and felt great about my turns and control on them. I had one run out where I saw a great wave coming at me. I tacked just in time on the crest and rode down the breaking wave and got some great turns. That felt really good!
But I still came in 3/4 and 3/3 heats. Then in my 3rd heat I didn't find any waves and came 3/4 as one sailor didn't show up. So I finished 5/9 masters. Suddenly I was having a solid nap in my tent and woke up just in time to rig for another heat.
My last heat of the day was an amateur hear vs. Simeon. The previous heat had been cancelled as there weren't any waves. It was just us two, we headed out and both found waves. I had two good rides and was smiling when I came in. The old RRD freewave 108 I've used for the last few years and the Elite 5.7 were very comfortable. My result was in 2/2 in that heat and thus my competition was done but got a lot of comments in camp about how my wave sailing has improved.
While I don't have Internet access for the week, rumour has it that a photo of me made it in the press release! (And here's what they said: Carl Speiss managed to click with the sets and showed tons of progression in his riding, connecting multiple waves from the Bombora all the way through the bay.)
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| Carl gets a wave from the IWT Press Release |
Huevoes Rancheros for breakfast and then I lead the Japanese contingent and Russ and Arianne for a 9km mountain bike tour up to the badlands. We even bicycled through the famous hole in the rock. We got back in time to see the finals of the masters which had Simeon crowned masters champ and my ranking came in at 5th our of 6.
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| My Master's ranking 5/6 |
I was on a nice wave and Boujmaa dropped in on it too. He did a bottom turn around me and then signaled me to go next. We linked a half dozen turns, whooping and hollering. Then we shared the next party wave again in amazing sync.
I didn't find many more waves, but did get 2 out of my 3 carve 360 attempts.
Another huge highlight of the session was heading out to the Bombora and seeing 4 of the 5 windsurfers ahead of me all do loops! I was the 6th sailor over the wave and did a decent jump, but no loop! Brazilian pro Edjvan thrilled the crowd with his boosted back loops and freestyle.
I was on a 5m Ezzy Elite and quickly got used to the 102 Goya thruster board I'd selected. I normally only like single fin boards. I covered 32 km in 90 minutes and felt great heading back to shore.
We then watched the amateur final with Olivier from Paris, JP from Guernsey and the two Toms from Canada. JP's three waves through the Bombora stole the amateur final quite clearly.
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| The Canadian Toms doing very well in the Amateurs |
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| Amateur results tied for 9/14 |
Wednesday Aug 23 - Hike
I had another 10 hour sleep which included vivid crazy dreams that I could almost remember after waking up - something rare for me. Breakfast turned into a lazy morning of French vanilla flavoured coffee and reading.
Before noon I headed out and did a 45 minute 4.3 km hike up 'downhill' and along the 'top of the world' ridge. I was definitely missing my wife, recalling the great hikes we did together last year.
After lunch and a quick nap we had the IWT Baja premier of Girl on Wave. It was great to see Sarah beaming as the windsurfing crowd applauded at the end of the movie.
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| Movie Matinee and the Pro/Am announcement! |
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| Sarah Houser and me at the screening of her movie Girl on Wave |
Thursday Aug 24 - ProAm
Right after breakfast I headed out for ride on a sweet Santa Cruz 'tall boy' carbon fibre mountain bike. I made it all the way up 'downhill' without stopping pedalling (but did take one small break near the top) After a 7.5 loop down I came to camp, got some water and headed out again to 'ridge of dads' and then '311' and 'downhill'.
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| My morning mountain bike ride. |
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| The sweet Santa Cruz mountain bike that is available for riding on the trails |
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| The start of the pro-am race! |
As I was getting ready to head in, there were suddenly a bunch of riders on the water. Unbeknownst to me the slalom cross had started. I did one lap with the pros before figuring out they were actually racing and quickly abandoned the course.
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| I was out in the middle of the pro expression session - oops. |
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| Clearly, despite the geeky helmet I was having fun! |
Friday Aug 25 - Closing Time
After breakfast I headed out to Stand Up Paddle with Boujmaa and JP. Others quickly joined us at the Bombora. I caught two waves out there and one coming in. I'm slowly getting better at the SUPing and really enjoyed my nice long wave ride back in to camp. 2.6 km in 40 minutes. Boujmaa was inspiring, he didn't even get his hair wet during the 100 or so rides he got!
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| GPS Capture of my SUP session. Just two waves at the point, then one long one on the way back in. |
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| Bike ride with 27 km/h top speed. |
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| SUP sailing session - lots of fun catching 20+ waves! |
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| Winning an award for being the happiest IWT camper! |
The van and trailer got packed with everyone's extra gear so the planes can take all the people heading home tomorrow.
Saturday August 26 - Packing it in and up
The camp started clearing out right at breakfast and some of the tents started coming down. I went out for a last SUP and had 13 great wave rides, possibly a record for me? I certainly felt more comfortable than the day before; stable most of the time on my 10 foot, 31 inch wide RRD 'WASSUP' board.
Then I headed for a bike ride on a different Santa Cruz mountain bike, this one had 12 gears at the back and I was able to make it up 'downhill' without a single stop. I was pretty spent and enjoyed the view from the top one I got there. I had a super fun run down 'Stans' and back to camp.
Just to push it, I rigged up a 5.7 elite and took out the RRD 12 to make it a 3 sport morning. I only planed once, caught 3 waves but made almost all my tacks and jibes.
Almost everyone was packed up and the excitement built as the first of 3 planes landed. The flight home in the Centurion II was at a higher altitude than normal, 6500 feet which made for some nice views. I had a quiet evening in San Diego with a nice dinner at Spike Africa's and got ready for my Sunday morning flight home.
As usual, I'm already thinking about my next trip to Baja - maybe with a wave camp again next summer?
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