Good hydrofoil windsurfing session + pretty dune plants

Hydrofoil windsurfing is great. I'm still using the "Slingshot Infinity 76" hydrofoil that I got in 2019 and first blogged about here. The only difference is that I mount it to a different board now; a Fanatic Skysup. (Boom mount video of me riding the skysup in 2021 here.)

Today's session was at Bonita Beach access #10, which is finally starting to get back to normal after being leveled by Hurricane Ian in 2022 and messed up again by Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024. In just the last couple of weeks the county added some dune plantings, which I have learned from my colleagues at FGCU are VERY effective at gathering windblown sand and reducing beach erosion during storms.

It seems like some plants have also recruited to the dune on their own, like the railroad vine, Ipomoea pes-caprae.

When I arrived at the beach it was quite breezy but I wasn't sure it would be enough to use a 6.8 sail on my shortboard. I went with a 4.7 sail on the foilboard. (The rule of thumb is you use about 2/3 the size of sail for hydrofoil windsurfing as you would use for normal windsurfing.) When you're powered on the foil it's easy to go way upwind and downwind, so that's what I did, making these nice tracks. I crashed a couple times but didn't lose my sunglasses, and I saw a sea turtle, so I'm calling it a win.