Easter Weekend Sailing

Winter weather has once again stormed into the islands, creating cold, gray, gusty and, in my opinion, nasty conditions for sailing. But, it’s not just me that thinks it’s nasty. My normally very positive and upbeat better half called yesterday’s conditions at Kanaha “gross.” It rained all day, barely reach 70 degrees and was only marginally breezy.

Today, she described the conditions as “pathetic” and “piteous.” The rain turned to just showers, but those showers marched through on a regular basis on the north shore. I went out on 5.0 and a demo RRD FSW100 and even with that much float under me, I ended up slogging when the wind dropped shortly after I launched in the afternoon. And it was still cold and gray. Reminded me of my sailing days in Seattle (well maybe a little warmer). And, oh my god was it crowded as hell today! Seems like every windsurfer from the mainland, Europe and Japan is vacationing here now and trying to sail. Lowers was a crowded mess of international windsurfers, fighting for little, mushy knee- to waist-high slop.

Kihei was windier and sunnier, but the graphs looked like it was hella-gusty over there as it usually is, especially when we’re getting squally conditions like this. All this just goes to show that no matter where you live and windsurf, nature can still throw crappy conditions at you.

Looks like tomorrow may be the same on the north shore as the PWA Hawaii Pro kicks off. Tomorrow will be a qualifier day for any non-pro hopefulls who want to compete. Looks like they’ll get more squally conditions with some small, mushy waves to show their stuff.