Bonaire 2019 Highlights

Here is a quick summary of our 2019 Bonaire windsurfing trip. So many highlights:

All smiles in the warm, clear waist deep water!

My 8th ABK windsurfing camp where I did my 1st planing duck tack. 3 more then next day and several more the next week. See the duck tack blog post.

I mostly completed and sailed away from my fifth Vulcan on March 29th. (Tips: remember to twist hips to the front, sail leaned back, hop out of the pool with shoulders pushing down on boom.) That means I’ve done vulcans in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016 and now sort of one in 2019!

Each night we did video analysis. This was some nice video of a downwind 360.

One handed 360 windsurfing from Canadian Guy on Vimeo.

I really enjoyed sailing my own gear every day. It was well worth the $100 Sunwing baggage charge which I only had to pay one way!

Arrived and it is windy!

And it wasn’t too much hassle going through the airport. Jen even enjoyed sailing on my gear - the 10 year old Skate 108 and the super light 1 year old Idol 5.6. I used that sail 13 days straight. Jibe City hooked Jen up with nice gear each day and rented me a great spot to store my board and sail.

All our gear arrived!

The ABK Foil lecture was fun. I look forward to using some of those tips this summer.

ABK foil lecture

ABK Jibe BBQ night

I was glad to have brought a weed fin, but didn't really need it most days. The sargassum sea grass was much less than last year.

Another highlight was meeting another of Len’s grateful students.

One of Len's nice students

We enjoyed watching the King of Bonaire contest.

King of Bonaire contest - warm up for the PWA

And it was cool to be in the same place where Balz Muller was showing off his insane foil skills.



The Sunday photo shoot went well. A different shot of the one run that we managed to get on the way into lunch together was selected for the Jibe City ‘Couple of the week’. Thanks to Marc Van Swoll - MVS Photography.

Selected as couple of the week - Thanks Marc

One handed carve 360

Blasting

Couple photo enjoying the waist deep water

We were excited to find that the Bonaire Landsailing Blokarts were open for business again. 30 minutes is the perfect amount of time to enjoy the view of the ocean and also see just how fast you can get going. (38 km/h) What a blast.

Blokarting was fun!

I re-enacted my daughter's joy from a decade ago!

Katie at age 7 enjoying the Blokarts on Bonaire

Too bad we couldn’t stay for the PWA championship.

The PWA is coming to town

I wound up getting planing 14/14 days. Some days I windsurfed over 40 km between morning and afternoon sessions.

Typical session in the waist deep water (map looking east)

Session with some longer runs out to the deeper water

I only topped 40 km/h on the last day, hitting 44 km/h using the rental gear for my last hour of sailing. My new GPS watch shows my heart rate hitting 159 which is much higher than I expected!

Pretty high max heart rate while windsurfing!

Food and overall hospitality on the island was wonderful. Here are a few shots.

Canadian content - Oma's plate!

Fancy dinner

Ceviche

Fun with the KLM crew waiting for the plane from Amsterdam

Cruise ship in town

Dinner on our last night

Looking forward to future visits to Bonaire.

(For my own reference in the future, here is my Bonaire List: Own board, Weed fins, Ankle wrap, Harness, Gloves, Gopro, GPS)
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