First time windsurfing in Cabarete

Direct flights can make a difference to a windsurfing vacation. From Toronto, there are a lot of charter companies flying direct to Puerto Plata in the Domincan Republic. After visiting wonderful Bonaire but with long overnight connecting flights it was a pleasure to leave home at 11am and be on the beach in Cabarete at 6pm!

Unlike our experiences in Bonaire though, we didn't luck out with the wind! For the first 3 days of no wind my wife and were just recovering from colds we had back in Toronto. There was one thunderstorm that got me a 43 minute session. Then on the 2nd last day the wind returned but with some above average swells that made getting in and out really difficult.  You can see the concern on the nice french Vela staff member as he helps me out of the water after my first attempt to get through the shore break.

I put together a video that paints a pretty good picture of the session. Working on it now, two months after the fact, I really do want to get back on those waves.  The highlights of the video are the walk of shame at 0:40, the good jump in slow-mo at 2:55, the duck jibe at 3:33 the jibes on the wave faces eg. 3:55 and the wave riding at 4:25.


My failure and success in the waves in Cabarete from Canadian Guy on Vimeo.


After that one hour, I was pretty beat and just watched as a small fraction of the Vela guests dared to venture out through the shorebreak later in the day. The kiters farther down the beach certainly had an easier time launching and getting going.

I want to thank the staff at Vela and all the nice people we met in Cabarete. We'll be back!

Carving 360 Windsurfing Photo Stitch

Going through my photos of the afternoon session in Costa Rica I realised that my wonderful wife caught a nice sequence of me doing a carving 360. I remembered seeing a great photo stitch in the latest Windsport magazine... A few facebook messages later and I've got my first ever photo stitch courtesy of my newest facebook friend Brodie Sutherland.

I'll admit I wouldn't know how to do that trick if it wasn't for ABK windsurfing clinics and the great book "Tricktionary".

You can see more of Brodie's work at Instagram @brodiesutherland - Thanks!

Thanks to my wife for the photos, ABK for the skill and Brodie Sutherland for the photo stitch.

Windsurfing with my girls on Lake Arenal

My wife and me sailing
on Lake Arenal - 2007

In 2007 I managed to visit Lake Arenal in Costa Rica. My wife and I stayed at Hotel Tiwala and walked down to the lake several times to have some great windsurfing sessions.

One of my favourite windsurfing pictures is this one from 2007 of my wife and me both sailing. We had so much fun in Costa Rica on that trip as a couple that we knew we'd have to come back someday with the kids.

When we won a week in a lovely Costa Rica treehouse at a charity auction, our planning for New Year's 2013 began. I wanted to add time again to our trip and stay at Hotel Tiwala so my son could skateboard at their park. But the hotel is changing management (it is no longer Volcano Brewing) so we wound up just planning a day long road trip to Arenal.

My daughter and me sailing on Lake Arenal - 2014

I arranged our rental equipment from Peter at Tico Wind and we drove up from Playa Negra on the morning of Jan 2nd.  The wind was light for Arenal, so I was on a 6.2 and a 120l board. The water and air were comfortable, a shorty wetsuit was perfect. Windsurfing is still more popular than kiting it seems, but with only a dozen of us windsurfing, it was far from crowded. Peter's gear had a pretty good selection of new North Sails and Fanatic boards with a few nice local kids acting as shop help and board caddies.

My daughter was the only one in the family that wanted to sail with me that day. While she didn't sail for long, she did go out and make it back - something she doubted she could do half way through her session! Now I have a great picture of me sailing on Lake Arenal with my other favourite girl.

Costa Rica seemed to be the global hotspot for high wind windsurfing on Lake Arenal in the late 1990's and through the first decade of the millennium. These days the surfing scene on the Pacific coast seems to be what Costa Rica is better known for. Here's the fun family photo after the surfing lessons we took at Witches Rock Surf camp.

The family that surfs together...?

Lingering thoughts about Maui

What a great event the 2013 Aloha Classic was! Many weeks later, I'm left with a few strong memories:

The camaraderie - going out for dinners with guys who sail every day and/or work in the windsurfing industry and/or are living the dream of being professional windsurfers and/or wannabees like me who leave their real lives for a week to be part of the Maui scene. And parties at north shore estate houses. It was all good.

The pros - on my way through security at OGG I saw a familiar face. Josh Angulo was ahead of me walking through the airport. I recalled how nice Josh been on the beach after Brawzinho secured the PWA world title.  Josh told the photographers to stop taking pictures of Brawzinho and him, and instead have them take pictures of Brawzinho's father with his son in a very touching moment. I said hi to Josh and introduced myself. He was very gracious and excited to hear about my first AWT competition and now I've got an invite to Boston (or Cape Verde) some day!

The fences - yes looking through my camera pictures the fences made of old windsurfing boards was another strong memory and likely the best one to use in this blog entry.

The desire to return - I'm thinking there may be another AWT / PWA event in my future. And more visits to Maui for sure!

What's better than Ho'okipa? What's scarier?

Jake Miller ripping up Ho'okipa - against Robby Naish

A monk seal watching the action at Ho'okipa

After surviving my two wave heats at Ho'okipa on Wednesday, today I just watched some of the pros sailing there in the morning. Windsurfing legend Robby Naish was facing off against Jake Miller who I've known from board tests for a few years. Most of us thought that Jake had sailed well but the PWA scoring wound up putting Naish ahead. There was a cool monk seal watching the pros at Ho'okipa too.

I headed over to buddy Chris's place near Kanaha where a bunch of us were rigging to sail. It was nice and windy and I set up a 4.7 and after trimming it properly within a few runs I was having a blast. I was jumping, riding waves, turning whenever I wanted and enjoying sailing with a bunch of friends.

It was totally cool to have Jake Miller show up in Chris's back yard to sail with us, right after he competed and controversially lost to Robby Naish. Jake threw and landed a fantastic forward loop right in front of me! This was the first time in a long time that I was sailing in waves on a 4.7 and feeling in complete control. Sweet!

Chris and Dave's backyard launch site
- amateurs and pros welcome

After a good long session, I headed back to shore to grab some water and rig up to the 5.3. This was a much different session. I couldn't get going properly as the wind was lighter. I wasted some time getting the GoPro set up, and still couldn't get back upwind to where my friends had been sailing. I hadn't noticed that everyone else was off the water.

Enjoying the odd jump before I found out about the shark!

A lifeguard jetski was heading toward me and even though I'd been falling off my board a fair bit playing with the GoPro and generally floundering - I always got back up and I didn't think I looked like I was in need of a rescue. As he got closer the lifeguard put his hand above his head like a fin.



SHARK.

I was the last one to be told about the shark by the lifeguards...

http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/23847152/breaking-shark-attack-reported-at-maui-beach

There had been a shark attack just down the beach from where I was sailing but I was the last to know and so I was the last person on the water. Needless to say I headed back to shore directly even though it meant a bit of a walk back upwind.

Can you spot the 30 turtles?

It was a day for wildlife. We went for a walk on another beach and saw 30 turtles on shore.

After a great dinner we had a visit from a cool kiteboarder nicknamed "toast" who actually saw the shark attack. He plans on going out kitesurfing again tomorrow but doesn't plan on falling in much. I'll be more careful with my waterstarts too.

So the first session today was WAY more fun for me than Ho'okipa. But shark sightings right where you are sailing are scarier than the waves or rocks at Ho'okipa (or Halloween costumes for that matter.)

I survived my first wave heat at Ho'okipa

The pros ripping yesterday!

Robby Naish (and me behind the camera)
at the skippers meeting

Wow, I'm so thrilled I survived my first wave competition heat at Ho'okipa.

After watching the pros yesterday it was amateur, women and masters on Tuesday.  Robby Naish was nice enough to stop and pose for a photo with me after the skippers meeting and wished me well. So cool to be entered in an event with such an icon of our sport.

Robby was kind enough to stop for a photo

I had a fair bit of time during the day to watch the other windsurfers heading out and picking waves. Like yesterday, only one sailor wound up on the rocks but a few got towed out of the impact zone by the jet ski. The waves were a bit smaller than yesterday but three amateur windsurfers in the first four heats came in with scrapes, bruises and a twisted shoulder which was a bit worrying.

I had rigged my 5.3 and 5.7 on the beach and pro Matt Pritchard checked out my sail tuning. Thanks Matt for hooking me up with solid rental gear. Below is a picture of Matt getting air in front of the rocks in yesterday's competition.

My rig ready and Ho'okipa approved by Matt Pritchard

As I was waiting to be released into the waves, I introduced myself to two of the other competitors in my heat. One of those other masters has been sailing Ho'okipa for 30 years. They welcomed me on my first time there in the waves and gave me a few tips. Very nice.

I headed out and made it past the rocks and was happy to be planing upwind, searching for my first wave. I found one, turned onto it, completed one bottom turn on it but quickly got caught in the whitewater and fell. I remembered all the advice I'd been given on how to protect my gear in the waves and did my best to stay calm.

After being tumbled in the froth a few times, I waterstarted again and headed out again. In all I caught 3 waves in the 16 minute heat, managed a bottom turn on each one and even got a top turn. I didn't panic when I fell close to the rocks and just focused on positioning my gear and myself and moved on.

My grin was beaming from ear to ear as I returned safely to the beach. 

Sailing Ho'okipa at an American/World tour event was never even on my windsurfing bucket list as a maybe. What at thrill to have actually done it!

Stoked!  (Even if I had to wear a pink shirt)

My result was a predictable 4th out of 4, but I'll have some more heats in the next day or two. Aloha!

Matt Pritchard getting air yesterday in front of the rocks

Pretty happy to have finished my heat!

The heat schedule

A few fans....

Robby Naish's truck!

The next heats

Baja inspires an AWT amateur to go to Ho'okipa

I had so much fun at the Matt Pritchard wave camp in Baja, that I kind of got talked into signing up for the AWT Aloha Classic.  Here’s how it happened:

I’d been hoping to get to an American Windsurfing Tour event someday.  When windsurfing buddy Chris invited a bunch of us to be part of his 40^th birthday bash in Hawaii I jumped at the chance since the Maui AWT event was also happening at the same time and I was looking forward to watching the pros.

In Baja, someone had suggested that I actually enter the Maui event.  There is an amateur division after all.  I’m frankly scared of the fall and winter waves at Ho’okipa, having only sailed there once in the summer 18 years ago.  I've felt fine leaving the best spot in the world to the pros.

When I heard that the PWA pros were also coming to Maui to join the AWT, I emailed event organizer Sam Bittner to say that I might have signed up, but I was sure that they would not have room for a bad amateur now that the best from the world were attending.  But Sam was insistent and signed me up anyway.

Yesterday I was watching the first day of sailing one the AWT live stream while finishing up emails into the wee hours at my desk at work. And now here I am on a plane to Maui, editing the video clips I collected while in Baja.  Check out the video:

Punta San Carlos wave camp with Matt Pritchard inspires an AWT amateur from Canadian Guy on Vimeo.

https://vimeo.com/77825561 

I can’t believe I’m actually one of 130 contestants that include Robby Naish and so many other great windsurfers I’ve read about and watched over the years.

I'm on the list!

There will be live streaming at http://www.alohaclassicmaui.com/live/ 

Here are a few videos I’ve watched..  The wipeout reel from the 2012 AWT Maui event has me a bit worried!

AWT2012-MakaniClassic-DoubleElimination from American Windsurfing Tour on Vimeo.

AWT Maui Makani Classic 2012 - Crash Compilation from American Windsurfing Tour on Vimeo.

I’ll be adding some blog entries in the coming days for sure.