Virginia Weather; Manic Depressive

We just had three days of perfect weather here in Virginia, with highs in the 70s and ample, albeit gusty, SW winds. After five months of windsurfing in a thick scuba wetsuit it felt immensely liberating to wear only a thin, shortsleeve suit; to feel the warm wind and the cool water splashing on my skin. Then the weekend started...



I suppose it's just as well, in light of the real-life obligations I need to catch up on. But here are some pictures and video to recapture the glory of the past week.

This first one was taken yesterday afternoon after the wind had died down quite a bit but it was still warm. Beginner windsurfer Heather Wiseman was cruising around on my Kona with a small sail. I told her to come up to the end of the pier at York River Seafood and do a jibe at the last minute, but she started to do a tack and got REALLY close to the pier before she remembered the difference between a tack and a jibe. So the jibe was a lot closer to the pier than intended. She made it, though.



Next are some pictures of some new (to me) gear that I got to use this week. The first is a 25 cm weed-wave fin designed by a guy in California who goes by the handle "Wardog". The cool thing about this fin is that it has lots of surface area so you can use it with a big sail, but it's short and curved so you can use it in shallow, weedy water. I love it.



The second picture is my new medium-sized sail; a 6.6 meter squared 2005 Aerotech Charge. I like it because it's manouverable, powerful in light winds, and stable in high winds, whereas my previous medium-sized sails never had more than 2 out of those 3 qualities.



The final picture was actually taken before the 3-day run of warm weather. It's ODU student John Gelinne standing by my car last Sunday at "Canadian Hole" in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We had just finished up an intense weekend of windsurfing with a group from the VIMS Sail and Paddle club, led by kiteboarder Sam Lake.