Movin' and Groovin' and Workin' It

I've moved into my new place in Nahant. Needless to say, I like it a lot better than the old place in Lynn. Now I feel less like I'm in Massachusetts as a career necessity, and more like I'm here to enjoy the full spectrum of living. It helps that the last week has seen a sudden bloom of summer, with a 10 degree C jump in temperature. I'm on a three-day streak of doing beachy social stuff, which is amazing.

Yesterday I got a good windsurfing session with great company in warm-for-New-England, side-shore conditions. Jay Turcot from British Columbia took a bunch of nice pictures, some of which I've copied below.

Nahant Beach has gone from sparsely-peopled a few weeks ago to quite the scene now, with full parking lots and folks of all sorts doing things of all sorts.


They have lifeguards and they charge you $3 to park, but I reckon that's not too much money in the grand scheme of things.


Some people who are new to wavesailing were out there looking remarkably confident. Like Claudio, here getting out through the break...


In typical Nahant fashion the waves were long and came in well-organized sets, so you could even ride on the same wave as your buddy. (I'm on the red 6.8 Aerotech Phantom and the blue Exocet Cross 106.)












I think Jay is a really good photographer. Check out this seagull in flight, and the artsy sand ripples.




Jay also got this sweet sunset picture from out the window at my new place. Pretty cool, huh?


In other news, work has been going well. We finished a big weeding and surveying push for our seaweed biodiversity manipulation, and I put out a bunch of temperature dataloggers and wave force dynamometers so we can compare the physical conditions among our sites. The wave force dynamometers have been a bit of a headache. First the balls were falling off, then the carabiners that hold them to eye bolts in the rock were coming unscrewed. I think I've got things sorted out now, though.

This is a bunch of us up near Pemaquid, Maine doing the surveying and weeding.


This is my buddy Brendan at a restaurant in Canada. We had a little down-time between morning and evening low-tides when were working in Lubec, Maine, so we went over the border to explore. Canadians put gravy and white cheese on their french fries and call it "Poutine". It's OK.


This is a shaggy mouse sea-slug, scientific name Aeolida papillosa. It's in a tidepool surrounded by Ascophyllum nodosum rockweed.


The tube with the wiffle-ball is a wave-force dynamometer, and there's a temperature datalogger under the little PVC shade hut.


When a wave sweeps over the dynamometer, it drags on the ball, which is tied to a spring inside the tube, and a little rubber stopper is deflected some distance in accordance with the force of the wave. Assuming the dynamometer itself doesn't bust loose, you can go back later and measure the deflection on the rubber stopper to see how strong the strongest wave was.

Hedging His Bets for the Rapture

**UPDATE- Doh! My dad fell off a ladder after being menaced by a giant spider while pressure-washing. He broke his arm and part of his pelvis and he's in the hospital now getting pins and screws and casts and stuff. Maybe he tempted fate a little too boldly? If you want to tease him or cheer him up you can leave a message on his blog.**

My dad was pretty concerned about Judgement Day yesterday, so he spruced himself up to increase his chances of being among God's chosen.



When the rapture turned out to be a bust he reverted to his old ways pretty quickly. LOL.

Ballet, what?

Most of my adult life I've been a marine biologist living in one small coastal town or another. I've been able to wear flip-flops or hiking boots every day, enjoy windsurfing and simple beach life, and socialize with familiar friends and co-workers at beer-and-bbq-based parties. Basically, it has been great.

The only thing I thought I would do more as an adult that I haven't done so much is partake in an urban cultural scene. You know, like going to indie rock shows and theatrical productions and talking about fancy things while drinking coffee with creatively-dressed artists in cafes and bookstores. I'm probably not cut out to be a full-time hipster or intellectual, or even a half-time one, but now that I live near Boston I reckon I can marinate myself in culture now and again, and hope some soaks in.

I got a good dousing on Saturday at the Boston Ballet. It would have been real expensive, but a friend of mine who is a theater person managed to score a couple free tickets. Awesome! The dances they were doing for this particular show were choreographed in the 1950s, 70s, and 80s by two famous ballet dudes: George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. (The latter guy was apparently the same one who came up with the dances for "West Side Story".) The music was classical stuff by Mozart, Debussy, and Stravinski. The Mozart part seemed more like "old school" ballet, with lots of dancers lined up on the stage at one time, all the ladies in twirly tutus, and the men in little gold jackets that didn't cover nearly enough of their deeply-wedgied buns.



The Debussy part (my favorite) seemed more modern and had a good dramatic romantic segment with two star dancers. Ballet dancers all seem to be good-looking, but the blonde diva in that part was especially, um, radiant. The Stravinski section of the ballet was good, too. I can't quite describe it, but I thought it had a vaguely "Eastern" vibe with the costumes and stuff.

Conclusion: Ballet is pretty cool. I might even pay to go to one someday.

Angulo to Korea, Random Windsurfer in Memphis

*UPDATE* Angulo is doing pretty dang good in Korea so far. He's had top-3 positions in several heats, mixing it up with Albeau and Dunkerbeck, and has made it to both winners' finals. (Link to the standings.) It must be those battens I helped him with last week. ;)

So, I didn't manage to get a windsurfing session today, but I did do some windsurfing-related tinkering at Josh Angulo's house after work. We custom-tweaked the battens on his 8.7 and 9.5 Gun "Mega XS" race sails, and I picked up some special slalom fins he bought from Dave Kashy. Josh and his mountain of equipment leave tomorrow for the PWA contest in Ulsan, Korea. Hopefully the gear modifications will help him kick butt.



In other news, a windsurfer in Memphis, Tennessee is apparently adapting well to the Mississippi River flooding...



(The latter news bit was passed along by Windsurfing Magazine on facebook.)

Biologist's Mother's Day Song

A lady biologist friend of mine was passing this around for Mother's Day. It's a sweet video, and it explains how, for a variety of real and interesting biological reasons, we all get a little more than 50% of our hereditary traits from our moms. Thanks, mom.

First ride on a twin-fin waveboard

Warning: This is purely a windsurfing geek post. It contains almost no interesting commentary on people, places, relationships, philosophy, culture, or emotions. Also, the music in the windsurfing video is obnoxiously heavy.

Friday evening I went windsurfing on Josh Angulo's "Victory" quad / twin waveboard. The board was shaped by Josh's brother Mark, and has sort-of a "classic" outline; relatively long and narrow with a turned-up nose. The volume is around 100 liters- a little more than the biggest production board in the Victory line. I was able to tack and uphaul it fairly easily, which was nice in the initially-light wind conditions. The fin set-up was "twin", with two 17.5 cm x-twin fins from Maui Ultra Fins. I used a 6.3 Gun Sails "Toro", also a loaner from Josh.

Compared to the single-fin freestyle wave board that I usually use in waves; the Exocet Cross 106, the Angulo Victory needed a little more wind (or a push from a wave) to pop onto a plane, but it was very smooth and much, much turnier than any board I had ever ridden previously. I mean, the board could turn faster than I knew what to do with, which was cool. It was also really good at re-directing from the top to the bottom of the wave, and wouldn't snag even if you hit the crumbling part of the wave lip in an awkward way. Check out the video below. The music is "Jesus Built My Hotrod" by Ministry.

Double Rainbow, Sunset, Josh Angulo, Frontside Rides, Etc

Woo hoo! This is such a cool day. It's bright and sunny, it's a Friday, my new roommate just gave me $1125 in cash, I'm about to go windsurfing, and Josh Angulo just moved to Nahant with a garage-load of windsurfing gear that I can use and you can demo, like, whenever.

Here's Angulo in his garage with a ton of "Gun" brand sails. They're good sails and they're cheap, and you can test-ride them in Nahant if you want. I've got a 6.3 in my car now, and Josh's custom twin-fin waveboard on my roof. Heh heh heh.



Last night was a killer windsurfing session, too. Beautiful rainbow and sunset and LONG front-side rides on small, clean swells. I filmed it with my GoPro camera.

Windsurfing Good Times

Before I go out for a windsurfing session I like to cast my net, so to speak, among the other local sailors who might be persuaded to join the session. In Virginia it was a big net; the Windsurfing Enthusiasts of Tidewater email list. In Florida it was another big net; the East Central Florida Windsurfing yahoo group. Here in the Boston area we have a big city but not much of a net. The de-facto system here is based on semi-overlapping nuggets of windsurfing friends who call and email each other or chat on iWindsurf's East Coast forum. Unbeknownst to many, however, there IS an official Boston windsurfing email list, which is maintained by the local chapter of the Appalachian Mountain Club: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/amcbos-windsurf/ You don't have to be a member of the AMC to join the yahoo email list, so I recommend that every windsurfer in the area join it now.

Anyway, this morning when I noticed good 15 - 20 knot winds at Nahant I sent out a message on the AMC list. Jay Turcot, a young, West Coast Canadian, answered the call to join me there. I was zipping around on a 5.5 sail when he arrived, and he blasted with a 6.2 for maybe an hour until the wind dropped. Then we both rigged bigger sails, but had a hard time getting going because the wind had dropped way down to around 10 or 12 knots. Jay had a nice camera with him, and got this picture of me trying to grab the last scrap of good wind with a 6.8 sail. Thanks, Jay.



So, while I'm on the topic of windsurfing organization in Boston, I should mention these two weird but potentially cool things:

1) Semyon Dukach, the Russian blackjack genius who was the subject of "Busting Vegas" is looking to start a windsurfing center on a nice piece of Boston Harbor property in Winthrop. "East of Air" seems to be in the conceptual stage at this point, but I reckon it's a winner of an idea.

2) There is a credible rumor that Professional Windsurfing Association wavesailing world champion Josh Angulo, fledged in Maui, crowned in Cabo Verde, will be moving to Nahant this summer. (He wants his son to be able to get an American education and his Cabo Verdian spouse would like to work towards her citizenship.) If Angulo makes it happen, he'll start a rental / lessons / retail operation on Nahant for Angulo Boards and Gun Sails. That would rule.