Splash, splash, splash

I'm tired. It was windy 3 days in a row. I got 4 session in, sailed probably about 200 km (the GPS refused to cooperate one day). That would not be so much, except that I copied Nina and Marty. They are both better windsurfers than I am. I think their trick is that they fall a lot. So I tried to fall a lot, too. When you fall, you need to waterstart. Waterstarting makes you tired! So there. That's the story. Told in pictures:

Jump jibes are fun. You are supposed to fall! Poking the sun with the nose of the board gets extra style points.

You're not supposed to fall in duck jibes. But plank walks after the mast hits the water are fun, too.

A splash before the fall

Marty duck jibing. Every now and then, he just turns around instead of falling.

I did not want to mess up my jibe completely, so I had to do other things. Jump jibes are my favorite - you are supposed to fall - what can go wrong? Well, you are also supposed to get right back up with a clew-first waterstart, flip the sail, and sail away. Needs more practice.

Duck jibes are easier. They are my "look, I can do tricks, too" thing. If I sail long enough, I re-discover the ways to mess up duck jibes. Having the mast hit the water so that the board stops, but you keep going at full speed, is my favorite. Then, Nina told me she simply pulled the mast back up after it hit the water, and completed the duck jibe. I had to try that, too, and it worked.

Nina and Marty fall all the time, not just when they are tired. So I needed to try other things, too. Going switch before jibing seemed like a good idea. That worked, but the jibes ended up a bit boring, and I did not fall all the time. Then I saw Marty try a duck tack. Nina tries them, too, and now catches the sail again most of the time. So I figured I just had to try my first planing duck tack. Took some convincing, though - I'm not sure I was really still planing when I finally threw the sail. Success! No, I did not make a planing duck tack on the first try, silly! I managed to fall!

All the falling was wonderful, since the water was just perfect, and I probably would have gotten hot if I had stuck to my usual lawn-mowing ways. But I was not sure if I was getting any better. So on the third day, I decided to spy on Marty: I made him use my GoPro with the Clew-View mount. He proceeded with his usual up- and downwind 360s, heli tacks, push tacks, duck jibes, donkey jibes, and who-knows-what-else. Oh the things I could have learned from the video! When I saw him do a beautiful early-throw switch duck jibe, I waved him over to make sure the camera was still recording. It was not :-{. The stupid extra battery that I had put in apparently had been almost empty, and recorded exactly 90 seconds. In these 90 seconds, Marty did an upwind 360 and a duck jibe. Makes me wonder - what would we have seen in an hour of video? Maybe we will find out soon - the next stretch of 3-4 windy days is coming up this weekend.
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On a different topic: many thanks to all the windsurfers who have donated to our campaign to bring Caesar Finies to the ECWF Cape Cod on September 13-14. We were able to reach our fundraising goal of $1200 to pay for Caesar's airline tickets in 6 days. Fantastic!