The Peconic Puffin Windsurfing Blog

Midnight Freestyle Expression Session

This is an excerpt from the ProKids DVD. There's another clip (and more info about the DVD) in this post.

Bonaire...freestyle heaven!

Tricks Are For Kids

Elvis is in Bonaire. And Elvis has a message for us: Tricks are for Kids! Three-year-olds can windsurf. Eight-year-olds can do a world of moves. Twelve-year-olds will blow your minds. Fifteen and sixteen-year-olds rule! (Check out this excerpt from "ProKids")

Anybody who follows freestyle knows about Bonaire as a capital of the discipline. Tonky and Taty Frans have dominated enough competitions in enough venues around the world, and Kiri Thode...young Kiri was brilliant BEFORE the day he raised the bar for the entire windsurfing world by introducing nonplaning loops (the Gekko Flaka) leaving every freestyler on the planet in slack-jawed WTF-ment, and he's only gotten better since. But perhaps not everybody knows that an instructor named Elvis Martinus has been nurturing windsurfing culture for local kids on Bonaire for well over a decade, and freestyle has been a big part of it. Dasher has been videotaping that remarkable scene for nearly as long, island hopping from his teaching gig in Aruba back in the 90's to capture some of the early days of this unique culture. So in 2006 when an all-kid freestyle windsurfing event was announced for Bonaire, Dasher was there, and earlier this year released "ProKids," featuring way-hot sailing from the littlest of sailors up the amazing talent of windsurfers like Sarah-Quita Offringa, Jaeger Sint Jago, Arturo Soliano, Kiri Thode, and of course Tonky, Choco and Taty Frans. But it's not a straight portrayal of competition; instead it's more of a celebration of freestyle windsurfing and kids on boards in Bonaire. It's a great DVD to get your own stoke going, and if you want to get the attention of someone who thinks windsurfing is for mom and dad, this is the ticket. There's also a bonus "movie" called Just Tricks, which includes more sailing, a great night freestyle session, bloopers and such. Much windsurfing fun. You can buy the DVD and get more information on the ProKids website. As Dasher says, Bonaire rules, and these kids rule! For fun I'm including some stills taken from a video Dasher made of "The Bonaire Kids" back in 1997. Somebody is working on something like a Grubby before Grubbys were invented. And look at those Disney kiddie sails...if they put Goofy on adult sails, I'd buy one.

Why I Love Aruba

(An impending trip to Aruba after six years away has brought past adventures to mind. In that spirit, Peconic Puffin Classics presents:
Why I Really Love Aruba The Unexpergated Version, for the Discerning Puffin (In the summer of 2000, Windsurfing Magazine asked the editor of PP to write an article entitled “Why I Love Aruba” and provided a basic description of what they were looking for. PP happily complied. Upon receipt of the Puffin piece, an editor decided to “improve” the article to make it “more suitable” for their readers. Horrified by the changes, PP felt it crucial to get the Original Words out to fellow Puffins. Here, for the first time, is presented the original piece, Puffin-style, and all the “more suitable” stuff left out. But I am using the magazine photo that accompanied the article, showing someone getting fine air off of nonexistent chop. I hope everyone thought it was me. It was the amazing Jason Voss).
Why I Love Aruba.
As the plane banks towards final descent, my wife and I have our faces pressed to the window. "Look at everyone on the water!" We’re giddy…we can’t wait to Get There. What did we check a bag for? We’re idiots! We could have easily brought everything as carry on.
We land. We pick up our bag. Emerge from the airport into the breeze, grab a cab. Fifteen endless minutes until we get to our room. Drop everything on the floor, change to bathing suits, grab the harnesses, race to the beach. Get a 45-minute session in before the day ends, then grab a beach chair for the question and answer session with instructor Eddy Patricelli.
With a Polar beer in tired hand, I glance at my wife, who is reflecting my own huge stupid smile. We are Happy. We are back in Aruba.
Five days later it’s Judgement Day. All week it’s been blowing a beautiful 5.5 with three-to-six inch chop on the inside. My jibes are getting wired, I’m ripping upwind, my wife has elatedly hit her first waterstart, but still, today is the Day. The day the instructor Dasher videotapes everyone sailing, and edits it into his weekly windsurfing spectacular, complete with soundtrack, to be shown to any and all at the Thursday Night Party. If you sail well for the camera on Judgement Day, you feel like a million bucks. In my four previous trips to Aruba, I’ve always been so exhausted by Thursday that I, well, felt like 1000 bucks…good but not great. But this time I’ve planned. I’ve rested for this day. I want to see myself on the small screen sailing like I sail in my Aruban dreams, the way I’ve felt all week.
I get to the beach early, check out a board and sail, and take a quick run to get the harness lines and footstraps dialed in. I make peace with my maker, accept my karma, run through my lessons in my head, and hit the water.
Cameraman spotted. I’m flying across the crystal clear water, seeing the shadow of my rig zipping over the undulating white sand four feet below. It feels so great just to be Here, Now, that all of a sudden it doesn’t matter, I’m just going for it, and so bank the board and rig hard over…switch feet…flip the sail…catch rig on broad reach, sheet in…and complete the best jibe of my life. I look back and Dasher’s lens is locked on me…he got it! I howl, tear back from whence I came, jibe (well again!) and return.
More great jibes. This is unbelievable. I’m having the best session of my life, and it’s just too easy. Teacher is smiling. Okay, let’s get wet…let’s try a duck jibe.
Earlier in the week I’d taken a duck jibe lesson, and had even succeeded in catching the rig on the far side of the duck without falling, but with the board dead in the water. Ugly, but the first step. Now I’m flying again towards the camera, the board and sail just perfect for the perfect wind and perfect water, bank in, flash back to lesson (don’t think about the sail, just keep carving) and catch the sail on the plane. Don’t switch the feet too soon! I don’t, and come ripping out of the duck jibe, and look back. Dasher’s jaw is dropped…I am sailing way too well.
That night in the video, I get my own montage.
We’re booked for next year.

The Gin Su Fin

I once watched a friend slice mushrooms with a Rainbow V1 blade fin, but the full range of possibilities was revealed to me in the Gin Su Fin infomercial.

Starring Chef Alberto Benitez (then an instructor at Vela Aruba) and Dee Imbert (star of The Search for One Eyed Jimmy) this ten year old clip is a sampling of the early video work by Dasher, then the dean of the Fisherman's Huts University of Windsurfing in Aruba, and one heck of an instructor (he taught me to jibe, and I was TERRIBLE. ) (Editors note: Dee Imbert's comment about the Gin Su Fin are in "comments" below.)