Well what do you know, it does get windy here in Netherlands. :)
Wind readings of gusts getting to 35+ knots (that's more than 64 km/h) and never less than 20 knots (close to 37 km/h).
And me without a proper sail. My smallest sail is a freeride 5.4 m². It's good for 20 to 25 knots but not so good for anything above that. That didn't stop me. A bit more downhaul and outhaul and on with flying I go. I have a feeling that I was going above the 30 knots mark several times (got to get a water proof GPS to check this feelings).
What did stop me was that after two hours I crashed hard when gybing. Somehow my left thumb lost a not so small part of skin during the crash and the messy going around that happen just after. That did made me stop. Now it's healing time, which I can only hope to be fast.
Wind has been missing at Aveiro. Since my last post we didn't have any properly good session. So you can probably understand how eager I was to get on the water on Sunday, when the wind as rather gusty with speeds of 18 and gusts of 25 knots.
The problem was that I was quite far from home as I was at a wedding on Saturday in the far away Bragança city. Partying until 4:00 in the morning, then going to sleep, wake up at 8:30 and 4 hours drive back home. Fast lunch and off to the water.
In the water I could feel that my body was reacting in a sluggish way. The toll of partying hard, no sleep and driving for several hours was claiming payment... and pay I did have to. When doing a tack (so nothing special) my left foot managed, some how, to hard hit the mast. I heard and felt a crunching noise but no real intense pain. So I just kept sailing.
After a while my little toe on the left foot was feeling strange. It was as if something was wrapped around it and was dragging in the water but whenever I look there was no weed of anything else attached to my foot. I decided that a quick check was needed so I grabbed the finger with my hands to feel about a bit. When what would you know: my little finger was the thing that was dragging in the water! The joint was out of place so the finger was moving about. When the water pushed it it would just go with the flow.
I don't know exactly why but I decided to give the finger a bit of a pull. There was a bit of pain but the finger stopped moving like a dead fish. Then I made my way back and with the help of some friends (thanks guys) I took all my gear and put it inside the car and drove home. At home I took a pill and put some ice around the finger (that by then it was starting to hurt) and went for sleep (I was really wasted).
Morning I finally toot the advice of friends and went to the hospital. Nothing bad was going on. A cracked bone and the ligaments probably suffered a bit but two or three weeks should have me back on the water (according to the doctor, I think one week at most will do).
So today while I was reading news on the windsurf blog-sphere I saw this video and the beginning made me smile. I too have a injury in my foot. Now I just have to learn how to windsurf like this guys:
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