Happy New Year!

Time as come for the year of 2009, a year that was filled with interesting events, ups and downs, to go and give room for the new year of 2010. To all of my friends and to everyone else, a happy new year.

Another South Wind session

Again a windsurf session with South wind in front of Riactiva. No pictures as there was no one else around. (Where are the good windsurfers from the area?)

The condition were quite good: tide raising, so water flowing South; wind (quite gusty) pushing us North. Easy to start planing early and then it was just as easy to throw so jumps in the tide waves.

Using my 90 l board was really fun. It's so different from the big ON 140 l that I was used to. At the same time all the moves are quite harder. Jibes are ok but tacks and heli tacks are really hard. It's probably caused by the board having a lot less floating on the nose (it's an old slalom shape) than the overall smaller volume.

On a bad note the wind forecast is just bad. No wind for as long as the forecast go. No windsurf in the next days. Even worse is that starting form Sunday it seems that there will be wind coming to Tarifa. Exactly when I cannot go there no more. That's just plain bad luck for me.

New Move!

There's a new freestyle move: Mojito. It looks plain wicked. Love this low jumps tricks. I wonder if I'll ever managed to even do a Speed Loop.

South, stormy, Wind

At last some wind... Not a wonderful one, but enough to go and enjoy a bit of Ria de Aveiro.

Yesterday the weather was heavy with the threat of rain (which latter did come) and humidity (22 °C feeling more like 28 °C). The wind was the blowing from the South to South-West at 7.2 m/s (~14 knots) with gusts of 12.3 m/s (~24 knots) when I got inside. Later it got a bit stronger (or should I say less week).

As usual with such wind (at least for me) you spend more time trying to start planing than actually planing. Even if a did take a big board (140 L) and a big sail (6.9 m²).

Not that I'm complaining... I am on vacation and I was plaining to go to Tarifa but the wind forecast made me change my mind and I'm staying in Portugal.

It was actually very good to be inside the water again, feeling the wind and the water. It's incredible how much I miss this feeling when I don't windsurf for some days... and it's been two and a half weeks from the last windsurfing session.

As a side note: I might be changing jobs and moving to a city that is a 40 Km form the Ocean. It's a really hard decision and with everything evaluated there is no clear winner. Oh well... let's see what I can find more about my current employee company and my potential next job.

Yesterday was another great day in Praia da Barra, Aveiro.

When I got there the wind a a bit light, not even enough to plan with my 5.4 sail, but around 18:00 it started to pick up and it lasted until sunset.

The swell was great for beginners: 1 meter waves, and with well defined sets. Anyone could easily get into the ocean without much worry for waves.

The pictures that I show here were tacked by a friend. He is overall a nice guy, but sometimes he focus on only one thing and the rest of the world becomes blurred.

That is what happened when he took my camera and started to take pictures of a certain girl...

When I come out of the water he told me that he hadn't see me and as such he had taken no photos of me in action but if you look closely you'll be able to see my bright blue sail on the right side of the photos.

Anyway, I feel like a really lucky person when I get to go on the ocean and feel the wind in my neck, the board jumping in the choppy water, the waves pushing me into the sky. Nothing quite like it.

Good to see someone having fun!

Found this on the web and just felt like sharing it:

By the way, I found this while browsing the WaveJam a British wave sailing event. They have more great videos and great pictures online, so if you have some minutes to kill this might be the site for you.

Windsurfers are really fun people.

By the way, on the Portuguese North coast the wind has really picked up. Winds of 30+ knots from Northwest.

Yesterday I had a great time on the Ocean, although my smaller sail (5.4) has proven to be too big for the conditions. Today I'm dying to go back and have a bit more fun.

By the way.. how come I manage to jump quite easy, but gybing is still so hard (when overpowered... auch!)?

Surf 'till sunset

Yesterday I went with some friends to Praia da Barra to enjoy some surf and sunset. I didn't feel like getting in the water (wind withdrawal makes me depressive) so I stayed at the beach with my camera and took some photos.

As we are a rather heterogeneous group (we do enjoy the ocean and sports though) we had a bodyboarder, two surfers and a kayakesurfer. And me, the amateur photographer.

The waves were looking quite good, with time between sets to get out of the sweel, and then some 3 or 4 good 1.5-2 meters waves.

As usual during high tide the swell was very close to the beach which, sometimes, lead to small crashes into the sand.

On the other hand it allowed me to get closer to the action with my non water proof camera.

And surfing until the sunset is always a marvelous thing. Who knows if today I'll also join them in the water.