#5 Le Jai - Marginal Wind

Ok, the wind was supposed to build to barely planing levels, and so I headed down to Le Jai. Direct from the house it is 26 minutes. Not bad. There were more people out than the last session there when it was really windy, but it was a Saturday afternoon too. Rigged up the 6.2 for the first time. The club there seems really popular:  http://transjai.free.fr/accueil_leclubnautique.htm

I got planing 6 times in an hour.  Moves, I tried a few. Tried Vulcan #60, and slid sideways which felt nice.  Tried to imagine myself doing a flaka and a shove it - that's a ways off. Did lots of upwind 360s in the non planing winds.  Spent a lot of time practicing slogging switch stance. Conditions were such that I could go out in a shorty, which is nice for late Sept.

Earlier in the week, we were watching TV and there was a "cribs" type show and it was featuring Robby Naish's house and him putting a skull and crossbones sticker on his new Porsche Panamera. There is often kiting and surfing and windsurfing on the adventure sports channel on TV here. And in the French windsurfing mag Wind, I found a link to a live windsurfing conditions site: http://www.winds-up.com - I'll be using that to get better forecasts in the future.

#4 Le Jai - Etang De Berre

Perfect.  Had the weekend with the kids, and have friends coming to visit on Tuesday. Monday's forecast looked good - and it delivered as promised.  I headed to the nearest launch to the house, Le Jai is 27km away. Apparently good when it is NW, despite questionable water quality.  It is basically at the end of the runway at the Marseilles airport.

I got there at 10:30, and watched a lone sailor ripping on what seemed to be a 4.5. As I rigged my 4.7, a nice guy emerged from his RV parked at the beach and suggested I rig smaller as it was gusting to 30knots (at least that is what I understood of his French). Oh well "le 4.7 c'est mon plus petit" was all I could say. I was fully powered and took quite a while getting used to sailing small gear again.  I definitely like the shorter harness lines and smaller footstraps that I've set up. Sailed for 2 hours, covered 45 km.

MOVE OF THE DAY - downwind 360 on a wave face, gybe, backwind the sail, keep sailing backwinded on the wave, then tack and continue in the original direction. Yelped out loud with glee when I did my first one. See GPS plot below.

No wind due for the next week or so.

GPS Track of Downwind 360 on a Wave Face

The trees tell a story

23 Degrees C, 25 knots, Sunny

More Windsurfers at Decathalon

Ok, I'm fascinated by this Decathalon big box department store. The one near us in Bouc Bel Air is enormous, and has its own health club, tennis courts, outdoor stables, park etc. Interestingly, they let the kids ride skateboards, zip sticks, bikes etc. around inside, and no one cares (or seems to get hurt).

We had to go and get a waterproof bag to store my car keys in when I'm sailing. These new cars with their electronic anti-theft keys mean you can't just put it on a string around your neck like the old days. I did have a nice Ford Taurus once with a keypad lock; that was handy...

Here is a shot from one end of the Decathalon, with the windsurfing section way at the end of the aisle.  I read somewhere it is 6,000 square metres, (60,000 square feet), that is a big store!

Decathalon Windsurfing Retail

#3 Brutal Beach - aka Six Fours

Another good day predicted by www.windguru.cz and www.windfinder.com. So where is the best place in a Northwest wind?  I took a chance and headed to the ominous sounding Brutal beach. It was much better than the name indicated. A nice beach with small pebbles, with a sandy bottom in the water. The local guy rigging next to me said there are no hazards. So I rig on the sidewalk, and have a really nice 4.7 session. Some of the big swells reminded me of those big swells at Doug's Beach in the Gorge, the ones you can turn down the face on, ride clew first in the other direction, and then head back in your original direction. Only one pathetic Vulcan attempt, #59 I think.

Windsurfing near a very civilized place!

How nice is this for a Launch?

#2 La Caveau - Fos

Ok, finally, I've got my gear, and there is a good wind report.  I've been using www.windguru.cz and scoping out the options.  Looks like for a SE wind, the best place is Fos sur la mer.  Drop the kids at school, come back to the house, pack a lunch, load up the car and off I go.  Turns out to be howling when I arrive, and I rig my 5.4.  I could have been on a 4.7, but had a great first session on my gear.  I sailed 32km according to my GPS.

My sailing is a bit rusty, and I'm not sure I like the big freestyle setting on the footstraps in the waves.  I do like my new fixed length harness lines, which don't jam up as much as my old adjustable ones (that I never adjusted anyway.)  There were around 40 sailors out, with a number of good front and back loopers.

There is a nice club there in Fos, with showers and washrooms, which I only discover after.

The local shop helped me with recommendations for later in the week, when it is supposed to be NW.  My French is really terrible but they were nice, also getting me set up with a shorter mast, since I'm hoping to be using my 4.7 more frequently.  Back in the car, I make it to the school in time to pick up the kids, but the car is pretty full inside since I don't have a roof rack yet.

Fos was a lot nicer than it looks in this photo

Another view of Fos, Pretty nice onshore

Back and Forth, 32 km total, 39 km/h typical top speed.

More Windsurfing Schools

Before leaving Gruisson, we visited the windusrfing school located nearby on an inland bay.  A great shallow place for people to learn, and it was pretty busy.  The family wanted to keep moving, so I'll have to return to practice Vulcans in this flat shallow bay some other time.

#1 First Day on the Med

After a few family visits, it was time to drive off to Gruissan, and my first views of the French Mediterranean coast. Driving from Toulous, home of the Airbus A380, the landscape has become much more arid, feeling a bit like the Oregon interior. The strong, hot, dry wind that was tailing us helped with that Columbia River Gorge reference as well. 

Luckily, there is a windsurfing rental shop where the dry wind hits the Mediterranean, in Gruisson. There were dozens of cars and trailers and RVs, and about one hundred windsurfers out, with some really good freestylers laying down some great tricks. I quickly rented some gear (a nicely rigged 5.5m sail and a tiny 85l board) for 22e for an hour, and headed out into the offshore gusty winds. Smiling, I returned an hour later. Gruisson is where the annual 1,000 person Defi-wind windsurfing race is held, so we also did some research about where to stay, preparing for our hopeful return in June next year.  
http://www.defiwind.com/


A good first session.  I didn't get blown offshore into the middle of the Med, I managed to do a few duck jibes, a carving 360, an upwind 360, and basically got used to sailing a short board again for the first time since April.  It wasn't a long enough session, but the family really didn't like being sandblasted on the beach by the Tramontane wind.