There have always been wind shadows in Aruba for the sailor who heads south of Vela's launch (where the high rise hotels play havoc with the trade winds) but had things got worse? What about the talk of a new hi-rise hotel being built straight upwind from the Fishermans Huts sailing area, where the wind has always been clean and steady?
After a six year hiatus (including 3 years with trips to Bonaire) my wife and I headed back for a quick vacation with friends, and while the wind was rather light (6.2 to 7.2 sails for me @165 lbs) I had plenty of opportunity to check it all out.
First of all, plans for the Ritz hotel that would have been built upwind of the windsurfing beaches have been cancelled. You can still find some old "our turf, our surf, no Ritz" bumper stickers on some local sailors' bumpers and trailers, but that's the only sign that the winds had been threatened.
And while there has definately been new construction down in the high-rise hotel stretch of beach "below" where people windsurf, the effect of that has been to jam the beaches below the Marriot. The Marriot marks the border between the commercial, built up mass-vacation culture and the wide open sailing beaches. (A note re kiting, which I rarely saw back in 2001: at the Huts area kiters are only on the the water before 11AM and after 4PM.)
The only construction we saw at all of note to windsurfers is the addition of a boat ramp just North of Vela. Boats have been launching there for years, but now will not have to gun their engines (and blow out the shallow sand) to get in or out. Tony in rec.windsurfing adds that this boat ramp "is only a temporary ramp to allow them to remove the rocks that used to protect the Hadicurari marina. The whole project will take a few weeks and the ramp will be removed when they are done with that. They are planning on building a new boat ramp for the watersports guys with waverunners and boats just south of the Aruba Phoenix, more than a mile away from the nearest windsurfer. Just did not want people to think that there is a permanent boat ramp being built right next to Vela."
Thank you, Tony!
Coming soon: reports on Puffins in Aruba, and a first date with the Exocet Kona.
(top photo: walking a sail from Vela to the water...the Marriot hotel to the right marks the end of the wind-muddling buildings.)
(bottom photo: Don't worry about the crane! It's lowering foundation blocks for a boat ramp, and word has it that even this ramp is just temporary. Behind, the clear shoreline of Fishermans Huts still lets the warm winds blow free. Fine me for the cliche.)
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