Friday - last day

Light wind day...Sunny went out on the go board and I taught him how to tack.  I went out on the SUP so I could give him tips on the water.  Dropped by the Real store - did a little shopping.  Such a nice day, we booked it down to the lighthouse to do some surfing.  There were some pretty good surfers there ripping it up.  I paddle out on the long board - got worked pretty good through the washing machine a few times.  Just great to be paddling around anyway - I think I was pretty sore from the day before.  Came back to the house and Jim was out sailing as the wind came back again.  Cut feet and raw hands convinced me not to bother going out so I snapped a few pics of Jim.  At sunset, we all took goofy poseur pics with some off-camera flash.  Rest of the evening we packed up and got ready for our 4am departure (ouch).

poseurs - pic by sunny

Thursday - crazy wind

Thursday was nukin'.  Jim and I sailed the smallest stuff we had.  My 3.5 seemed almost too much.  Jim had nothing smaller than a 4.6 so he went and rented a 3.7 (I think) and a 69 quad fin board.  I tried a bunch of forwards once I got comfortable.  Later we were under a tornado watch and a crazy lightning storm hit us that night.

me, with gazoo helmet

me fully lit on 3.5

Jim on 4.2

crazy lightning

Wednesday - Freestyle clinic day 2

More dry land theory with Witt and Tyson.  The wind picked up pretty good and we hit the Canadian Hole to continue hands-on.  We did some drills for vulcans and I went out and tried a zillion of them but crashed all of them.  Wyatt & Tyson gave me some tips and I think I should be able to work out the kinks soon.  Sailed the 5.2 / JP 102.  Wyatt and Tyson went out and showed their stuff - crazy flat water loops and endless spock 540's into other crazy stuff - these guys are good.  Tyson even busted his fin and kept sailing with it - it actually seemed to make his board slide around faster (but some pretty bad spinout).

group shot from the freestyle clinic

Tuesday - Freestyle clinic day 1

Me, Mike and Jim all went for the freestyle clinic with Wyatt Miller and Tyson Poor.  We found their house and joined everyone for some dry land theory.  There were about a dozen of us including 4 girls so it wasn't a complete sausage fest.  I guess Wyatt & Tyson were staying with the Makani fins guys from Montreal.  The boys gave us the run down on alot of basic stuff and after lunch we hit the sound (Salvo) to try some stuff out.  The wind was on the light side, but we worked on switch stance into hoss tacks and pivot jibes.

Monday

more sailing....great weather...surfed at the avon pier for a bit..wore Mike's 3/2 water seemed cold, but wasn't bad after a few minutes...strong wind 5.2 & Jp102 in the afternoon..then 4.2 & 85L Quatro....near supper time headed out to ramp  30 for some wave sailing on the 4.2/quatro.  Got a few nice rides, nearly had a run-in with a downed kiter but I managed to carve downwind of him.  Dan was out too and got some sweet rides.  Ramp 30 is 4wd accessible, but the van is 2wd.  Maybe next time in the summer I'll drive right up.  No pics from that session - too bad!

surfing at the pier, pic by Sunny

needless to say I was wiped after this day..thank god for the hot tub!

sunday

Nice warm weather..back on the water again (5.2 & JP102).  Sailing in a shorty. Days start running into each other at this point...Bick is now addicted to Modern Family - Mike brought the 1st two seasons with him on his laptop.  Sunny and I geek out with our camera gear.

OBX spring 2011 - back to the beach

Arrived Nags Head in the morning - Mike did most of the driving, but we were all pretty stiff from the long ride.  Sunny actually slept on the floor between the seats - not a bad idea.  I did a 3 hour shift and took control of the tunes - the boys were not fans of my tastes, but I tortured them anyway ( when they were awake).  First stop was WRV to pick up some schwag, then breakfast at the Western Sizzler. After breakfast we dropped by Wind-NC and Mike rented  a freestyle board and I picked up a new helmet. Wind look good enought to sail, so we found our rental house and dumped our gear on the lawn and started rigging up big stuff.  I played around on my 6.5 and just wore my shorty suit. Sunny played on the go-board and Mike fought with his new freestyle board.  Later on I rigged down to a 5.2 and had lots of power.  Jim grabbed Mike's fs board and gave it a shot - it seemed to need more power to work.  Great day on the water, and nice spagetti supper thanks to Jim's crock pot.  Dan and his father in law met up with us -they're staying with us until Wednesday.

Sunny floored