Sunday, July 10, 2011

Dolphins, sunset sail, and a new board

Windsurfing has taken the back seat the last few days. One reason was that we had to start working; the other one was that we wanted to get some sightseeing in before my daughter has to fly back next week.

The windsurfing we did was at Sprecks. I had one great day and a so-so day; Nina had a so-so day and a great day. The so-so days were caused by being underpowered. On the second day, where Nina had a lot of fun, she was on a 4.2, and I was on a 4.5. Usually, I'd be on at least a 5.0 or 5.5 when she is on 4.2, and indeed, I had started the day on a 5.0. However, I took the sail out in the windiest 30 minutes of the day, and then decided to go down to 4.5. Still, the day had some memorable moments, including a few decent wave rides, and the fall where my back foot was ripped out of the foot strap by a rogue wave, leading to a perfect split wipeout with lots of water up the nose. There also was the mandatory waterstart in light wind just before the impact zone, followed by schlogging into the waves - enough to keep a flat water sailor like me on the toes.

On Thursday, we went on a half-day snorkeling trip on a small (~15 persons) raft. We had a substantial amount of south swell, and it was raining for half of the trip, so we all got quite cold, despite renting wet suit vests. Waves were breaking on Lanai, making snorkeling there impossible, so we went to a sanctuary near the western tip of Maui. Snorkeling was nice, with plenty of interesting fish and nice corals. We also saw several sea turtles while snorkeling, cool. I took some pictures and movies with a wrist-mounted GoPro, but they turned out a bit disappointing. But on the way back, when we encountered a large group of spinner dolphins, I got some nice underwater pictures of the dolphins by leaning over the side of the raft. Here are a few:



Yesterday morning, we picked up Nina's new custom board from Mark Angulo:
Nina did not get a chance to try it yesterday, because we had planned a sunset sailing trip out of Lahaina. The trip was great - perfect weather, nice wind, great crew. Here are a few pictures: