It was a cold November day, back in Tallahassee - I was in college at Florida State. It was Friday night, and it was pretty par for the course - we were just finishing up the sailing club's beer tasting party. Earlier that day, I had been reading through posts on the local windsurfing bulletin board when I saw one from a sailor who was telling everyone of possibly epic wavesailing conditions at St. George's Island.
That sailor was my buddy H., and that was my first day ever sailing in the waves. There's a couple pictures from that day... I'm going to see if H. still has them. If he does, I'll post them here...
We left the party at about two AM, and drove to St. George's Island, falling asleep in the truck. We were up at eight, and it was HOWLING. I was totally OP'd on 5.0... I ended up breaking my wave board in half. Sailed it in flopping in two pieces. Grabbed the Screamer II. Back out for more. That, my friends, was a truly epic session that I'll never forget. I believe there were three broken boards, a trashed rig, and a broken nose that day. Awesome.
Hit play...
Anyhoo, fast forward a few years and H and his girlfriend A got tired of the lack of wind and lack of culture in Tally and pulled the plug, heading to SF, where Hugh works as an architect, A travels the country for her job with IBM - and there's so much more sailing options than Florida. I've come out to visit them for three summers now. This year, they just moved into a pimp new pad on Twin Peaks - check out the view:
Oh, wait. That's foggy. Here, check out this view....
That's downtown San Francisco you see behind my smiling face.
Anyways, they're on vacation for a bit, but heading back on Monday - excited to see 'em.
Now, on to the sailing part... but first ... the disgusting part.
Sitting here in the house, watching the wind sensors, I couldn't take it anymore. My leg didn't hurt much - it was just cut - and I wanted to go sailing. So I decided to wrap it up as well as I could, and hit the water...
Here's the process.
Leg.
Must create a waterproof seal. Hair does not help this. So I went Michael Phelps on my left calf. Not sure if it improved my speed in the water like it does his... but wow, I have really smooth skin! Must be all the moisturizing.
The final result. Under there is a Nexcare waterproof bandage, wrapped up with some flexible medical tape, wrapped in saran-wrap, then duct-taped. I pulled on my wetsuit over it - very gently- and it seemed pretty solid. The pressure kinda hurt, but not too bad.
At the Crissy Field launch, I met
Catapulting Aaron... This dude is hil-AR-ious. Expect an article from him next year. He's also the only male I know who can rock white sunglasses without looking gay or gangster.
Anyway, after a few hitches - (I left a boom clip in Hood River by accident, but borrowed one from
Abisail, who's had a bit of bad luck lately...) it was time to get wet. (Or, try and stay dry.) I wasn't going to push, so I grabbed the longboard. Plus, there was a huge wind shadow, and I didn't want to swim.
First launch - totally dry. Sailed out - realized new harness lines were about five inches too long for comfort. (I've been playing with my rig a lot - lately I've been running my boom as high as possible, so I was going to try the super-long lines. But, these were definitely too long. It was weird - the rig was super upright, and felt very light- fingertip control - but overall, I wasn't a fan.
Oh, as for how the water-proofing worked - I think it worked well. The only only problem? I sweat. Especially sailing totally OP'd in a 5/4 wetsuit. So there was definitely some moisture under the bandage, but not much. I don't think any water got IN, which was the point. Not sure if it'll take a good wave washing, but I'll probably try it next week.
I really like this pic Aaron took. The blue sail is pretty cool. That's the Golden Gate fogged in in the background.
This weekend, I'm off to Big Sur for a good friend's wedding - posts resume on Sunday night/Monday.
