Solid Northerlies are Barraging the Beach!!!

Wave Fest is HERE!!! And we are scoring some awesome conditions! Today is the 4th day in a row of solid Northerlies. 5.0 every day, maybe 4.2 for this evening's session!

The wind direction makes a huge difference around here. The first three days of the blow were basically due North, which is side/side off on the East facing beaches, and straight offshore on the South beaches. With no tropical swell affecting us at the moment, the ocean remained relatively flat. Which is great for the beginner wave sailors that Wave Fest was designed for!

The East Point Scene (photo Anne)

We all sailed at East Point on Thursday afternoon. It was solid 4.5 to 5.0 conditions, with about a waist high windswell to contend with. For as much wind as there was, this was about as easy as it gets around here! Perfect for the Newbies! There was a bit of current to contend with, but nothing terrible. Keith did a great job making sure everyone knew what to look out for, and we all worked together to get everyone in the water ripping. It was a great session that produced a lot of very happy windsurfers!! Good confidence booster for everyone.

George put up a bunch of great pictures of this session here!!

Keith gives a few pointers to Dale and Ken

Straight from 1st Grade to the Beach!! Anne gets ready to rig up!

The East Point session was Anne's first real ocean sailing experience, which is the whole point of Wave Fest. She did great out there, sailed with confidence, and got completely worked by the one big set of the whole day! But she came up smiling, didn't break anything, and made it back to the beach in one piece! Nice job!! Other Wave Fest sailors included Keith, Bill, George, Ken, Dale, Donny, Martine, Dave, and me. You can learn who all these people are here.

Today, on the other hand, has switched just touch more NE. Suddenly, the East beaches are huge and out of control, which means that it's time for the South side! Aww yeah! NE is about off-side-offshore down at Isabel's. The waves were wrapping around from the East beaches, with a very defined swell, about chest to head high on the good ones. Very fun swell size! It was classic Isabel's, with virtually no wind on the inside, a bit of current to contend with, and the reward being 3, 4, 5 bottom turn reeling left handers. Frisco George, Live2Sail George, and Ken K met me down there and rigged up for a fairly challenging session. I'm happy to report that everyone made it out (eventually) and back in to the beach in one piece and without breaking anything, which is just about all you can ask for in those conditions! Great stuff, and smiles all around, again!!

Regular Hatteras visitor John Reid came out to the beach this morning and shot off a few pictures of me sailing Isabel's. Thanks so much John!!

It wasn't all peaches and cream...

But sometimes it was : )

Fun fun fun!

Throwing some spray, only a little bit out of control!!

Right now, most everyone headed down to Ocracoke for the afternoon to catch the mellower wave rides the North end provides. I'm sure they're having the time of their lives, in what could be considered some halfway epic conditions!! Suuhweeet!

There's still time to sign up for Wave Fest, if you've been procrastinating. The forecast looks unreal, with 20 to 30+ mph NE winds forecasted for the next 7 days!!! Unreal!! The clinic is tomorrow night (Saturday), 7PM, at Sailworld Hatteras. Come on down and join us!!