54 km wing & wind foil in Bonaire

I decided I should make the most of the last fully windy day predicted here in Bonaire. It was nice and steady, but lighter than the last few days in the morning. I was happy to be at the Frans Paradise again where they have the deep water plus wing and wind foiling options.

I went out wing foiling first. They didn’t have any Duotone gear available so I was using a 5.4 Vayu wing. And another 97 L Tabou pocket air foilboard with a GA 1450 foil and footstraps this time. I found it pretty easy to get going but it did take a while to figure out my taxiing.

Ready to wing foil

Thanks Jen for the photos

Little video of me getting going…

Great morning session

The 1450 foil

Rental gear details -97 litres

Morning wingfoil session GPS track

A series of nice jibes in the first 1/3 of the session!

My jibes only took a few attempts and then I did a dozen in a row which was a really good start. Over time I was working on some tacks. I got a fair number of dry ones and even foiled out of one. So a bit rusty but getting the feel for riding a different foil set up every day.

Families having fun at the beach. Towing your kid…
now that is some slogging skill!

Meeting up with famous authors

And the regulars

After a delicious lunch on the beach from the fresh fish food truck at Frans we headed back so Jen could do her physio. We did stop at a wine store to pick up some wines for dinner tonight. There were cars stopped at the road by the airport so we stopped to and watched a big plane land!

Incoming!

So cool!

And our rental truck!

After getting back to the room and helping Jen treat her mild sunburn at the hotel I headed back to Franz Paradise. Luckily the 167 L wind foil board was again available for me. I took the same 7.5 Severne Turbo sail and tightened the boom a little bit. Otherwise no changes were required from yesterday. I felt WAY more comfortable on day two on the board and had a great time roaring up-and-down wind. 

GPS Windfoil trail all over Lac Bay
Some of those are almost 90 degree crossings

A lot of very slow tacks. But very few falls.

Longest km day of the Bonaire vacation

TURTLES. Wow there were so many I lost track but it was definitely over a dozen. I wonder as the wind dies down a bit that they are more visible or I was just going farther upwind from where everyone normally sails?

There was a nice little local Bonairian windsurfing race going on which I watched from a distance. Phil was competing on windfoil with a few others. Most were on fins. On their last legs I followed for a bit. Overall more kilometres than I’ve done any day here. Glad to have Windsurfed, Wingfoiled and Windfoiled so far this trip. 

We were invited to a wonderful BBQ dinner at Phil and Nicola’s house and enjoyed good company and the sunset! It was great to hear about his efforts to keep us able to foil in Lac Bay.

Lovely sunsets in Belnem

Thanks for a lovely dinner!

Will enjoy a break when the wind dies tomorrow afternoon, but hoping to get in a wingfoil coaching session with Dasher tomorrow morning…