It was sunny, windy, and relatively warm today (41º F, 5º C), so we just had to windsurfing. Nina finally had a good session again, sailing her 90 l Skate / 4.5 m Manic combo. With a very low tide at Kalmus, the water was shallow and flat, perfect for her to practice some freestyle - duck jibes, push tacks, and even a Flaka attempt thrown in. For once, we were not the only windsurfers on the water - someone else joined us. I did not get a chance to chat with him, but we had a couple of fun little drag races.
Even though Nina planed most of the time on her 4.5, we missed the best wind in the morning, and my 5.5 was large enough only for a few runs at the start of the session. I later switched to a 7.0 and practiced finding lanes between waves for speed. No great speeds were to be had, but I'm happy with a top speed that was 20% faster than the highest gusts. We got decent hours and distance numbers, and managed to improve our ranking on the GPS Team Challenge by a couple of spots - nice not to be second-to-last :-)
We both were in our Ianovated suits today, which kept us rather warm. Nina did not use the tubes, except for a minute at the start; I used them a few times at the start and after swims. Nina said she probably could have sailed without her open palm mitts today - what a difference the sun (and a bit of practice in cold weather windsurfing) makes! Although I'm sure that the suit also helped by keeping us very warm. As much as I liked my baggy dry suit, I have to say that I like the warm wetsuit better now, and not just because of the hand warming system. Of course, it helps a lot to have a van to change in - the Nissan NV high roof van was definitely a great investments.
2013 continues to rock, with 3 sessions in the first 8 days, and the next session on the horizon on Thursday: W winds in the mid-20s, sun, low 40s - see you in Skaket for a morning session!
