Avon Beach at Dawn, 5/12/08
Backloop at the Hole (Anne Pic)
Some Texture on the Water! (Dan pic)
Fully sheeted out, fully planing jibe! (Dan pic)
Smokin' water! (Dan pic)
Keith's "Lake Front" Home during the flooding! (Keith pic)
Thanks for sending the pictures, guys! Yesterday was pretty epic if you were able to charge it. The pictures taken at the Hole were my second 4.2 session of the day, and I had zero adrenalin and energy left after my morning Isabel's experience. Basically just survival sailing, in the average 35 gusts to 45 mph. Bill's got a short video of the Jockey's Ridge 3.7 action here. While we were sailing yesterday morning, Zach, Chad, Dan, and a few others surfed the overhead barrels in Buxton. Everyone claimed some time in the stand up straight barrels! Good stuff!*Back to the original post:
Geeez it is cranking right now! What an awesome couple of days! Last night (Sunday), Keith, Olaf and I sailed the Cove, lit up 4.2 conditions, with about a waist to shoulder high super peely wave! It was a bit of an adventure, as we couldn't drive all the way out to the point... So we sailed there! The Point itself is open right now, you just can't access it from land, so we sailed around the enclosures and got into the Cove via ocean-going vessels (our sailboards)! I've been out there a lot in the past, but it's never had such a lonely, isolated feeling to it. Not a single person on the beach, no trucks, no nothing. Just the three of us catching whatever waves we wanted... Cool experience, but with mixed feelings...
This morning was about as wicked a windsurfing experience as I've ever had. West winds at 25-35 kicked up a pretty sizable swell down at Isabel's. The 1/8 off shore wind direction left clean barreling faces in the waist to head+ size on the inside bar, long enough for 2 or 3 smooth turns before they closed out. The outside bar was a totally different story. Crumbly logo to mast high walls of water were detonating 200 yards offshore. So lit on my 4.2, there were a few times where I should've destroyed every bit and piece of my rig, but somehow got lucky and came out unscathed. My second run out, I chucked the biggest backloop attempt I've ever thrown, and I had no choice but to huck it. Imagine if you will, being super lit on a 4.2, and watching a wall of mast high water start to pitch 20 yards in front of you... The only choice I had was to point it slightly downwind at the last little bit of wave not throwing over yet, but already vertical and feathering at the lip. By the point I left the wave, I was already at least 10 or 15 feet in the air (relative to the trough), full speed ahead in 4.2 conditions... Hoooooooooooo watching the bottom drop out from underneath me.... wow. Of course, I botched the landing, but it was quite an experience... Certainly way bigger than the one Drew and Billy caught on film from a few weeks ago. Wow.
Anyway, we're looking at insane amounts of wind and swell over the next few days. I'll try to line up some photos, but being stuck in the shop all day, my sailing sessions aren't really overlapping with everyone else's... Mostly solo dawn and dusk sessions these days...
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