Standing waves

I woke up to the sound of the wind farm humming 1.75 km away. Always a good if somewhat annoying sign. Then, after a torrential and much needed rainstorm, I received a nice gift and card from the 4 awesome beginners from yesterday.

The beginners from yesterday sent a nice note
too bad I let it get wet before taking a photo

And a nice gift to prevent sunburn
with picture on the front of the card

The wind was building in the afternoon so I headed out to the Launch Pad. There were standing waves in the harbour as all the rain draining out of the river emptied into Georgian Bay. I've never really seen standing waves in Key Harbour before.

The wind was 13 knots average with the max showing 17 knots. I decided to try the 140 Slingshot foil with the 5.6 Idol. It looked even windier than my wind meter was indicating which seems to be the case in SW winds.

I had few good foil runs but have to admit that I was overpowered for the foil and not as comfortable as yesterday afternoon. I did get a few "almost completely on the foil" jibes, and a few falls. I was able to surf virtually straight downwind as I headed back and switched to the Skate 108 - keeping the 5.6 Idol.

It was slow progress getting upwind on the Skate 108. But I kept at it and eventually got up to Wedge Island. This was the first time I really just tried to stay up where the waves are smooth and the wind is consistent. There are some nice swells that roll in and are fun to ride. I consciously decided not to spend much time in the area where a SW wind builds south and west cross chop.

GPS from Google earth, looking from SW.

Speed chart

Same GPS chart, just a screen grab from my phone

I was smiling and feeling like I'd nailed an perfect session as I caught one last gust and planed all the way back downwind to the point of the Launch Pad. Overall 45 km in 2.5 hours. I had a nice tired on as I headed back for a Baja fog and fish tacos for dinner.