We missed you, CD. More importantly, you missed “it”…a classic Bowl session, and without rain! What happened to this, bro:
I shot out from the city at 6AM with it all timed perfectly to get me on the water at 8:30 (low tide was going to be 9:12). But I’d forgotten that my van had twenty feet of unshoveled snowy driveway to cross, so by the time I arrived George Pav was tearing it up, the Wolf was reporting being overpowered on a 4.2, and Scott was rigging down (whilst somewhere in ‘Rico, Bill and Hulse were getting it too, sans drysuits.)
The waves were peeling off nicely just at the end of the jetty…lots of four-footers with the occasional five and six to keep you focused. A few hundred yards further out there was beautiful swell to jibe off of, and jibe there we did, as just past that a large, gnarly-looking barge was pitching and rolling. It looked like trouble to me.
“Have you gone and checked out that barge?” Peconic Jeff asked?
“I have not, and I have no interest in doing so. I don’t like the looks of it,” I replied.
I of course then went closer than I had on previous runs, but that sucker was rolling and bouncing and no good could come from it, so I kept a 100 yard rule in place for my sesh.
The gang was on quite an assortment of gear…the Wolf and Scott were conventionally rigged and boarded (on 4.2’s) but then you had Pav on a big Joker, Jeff carrying a 4.7 (he had to be nuked) on a 77 liter board, me sailing a 4.0 on my 93 liter (I left my 4.5 home) and Frank was showing off his new RRD twin fin, which is my current choice for Coolest Looking Windsurfing Board In The World. A seal popped up occasionally to express confusion and wonderment at our choices. Seals don’t know much about windsurfing gear…they know about fish…so when Fisherman showed up later, rigged appropriately AND knew about fish, there was nothing left for the seal to do but leave to go eat, which he did.
We continued to have fun with the waves, which all but disappeared at one point before returning with gusto (I had to leave early, but Jeff reports seeing Fisherman jibe off some huge outside swell.) Speaking of which I should report that Jeff had one of the tastiest cutbacks I’ve ever seen, right off the top of a pitching lip maybe 50 yards from shore. T’was nice!
So that was my first official winter session. Most of us hadn’t been on the water for a few weeks, and we were griping about tired arms. We need more sessions to stay in shape! At one point Scott was sitting on shore, telling me how run down he was from a cold, on top of the sore arms from the lack of sailing, painting a picture of how beat he was. Then he picked up his gear, walked to the water like an exhausted laborer, got on his board...and boosted a six foot jump off the first bit of chop he encountered.
It was a fine day. Lord Chimpleton...you missed it!
(Top: The dredging barge helped define where our "outside" ended. Middle: George Pav rides one in. These and other photos by Peconic Jeff are on
his Flickr site. And there's a rumour that Jeff might even update
his blog with his version of the day, which will be more complete than mine as he arrived earlier and stayed later!)
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