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Road Trip : Inverloch

Yesterday I decided to make the trip to Inverloch after checking the forecast (around 20 knots of wind) and reading that a bunch of other people would be also sailing there on the local seabreeze.com.au forum.

Inverloch is about 140km from where I live and I was umming about whether it would be worthwhile, after actually making the trip I can say yes, it’s definitely worth the trip. I launched from the angling club, about 600m to the left of the main pier, there’s some nice grassy areas for rigging, plenty of parking and a bit of shelter from the wind. There are some large sand banks that protect the inlet from the open sea while still allowing the wind through.

When I arrived the wind was blowing about 25+knots due to some small squalls passing over, I stood on the bank and watched the other windsurfers. My smallest sail is a 5.7sqm so that’s way too much wind. The rain soon passed and the wind set in for around 20knots for the afternoon, I was still a bit overpowered but not so much that I couldn’t sail. It was great to sail some flat again and I managed to put 29.5knots on the GPS. After 3 hours of blasting I was too tired to even try gibing properly and made a habit of falling in at the end of every run.

Labels: Windsurfing

Lost Fin Freestyle

I went windsurfing at Ricketts Point again yesterday, this time in a SW wind so I was launching from the other side of the point. The wind was somewhere between 25kts to 30kts and chop bigger than any I've sailed up to now (I'm guessing about 1.5m), adding to that the half dozen poles and bouys in the water indicating where the rocks are, made for a pretty scary ride.

After getting the explanation of what the bouys and poles are and where the rocks are, I basically got the idea that there are rocks *everywhere* except between two of the poles. So the first attempted launch ended after about 10m as I discovered the boom too high, the gust too weak and my booties not fitting in the footstraps (I'd been sailing without booties for a bit and had adjusted the straps), turned around and went back to the beach for some tweaking.

The second attempt was a little better as I planed away from the beach, completely missed the poles and bouys area I was aiming for but luckily didn't hit any rocks because it was high tide. Coming back in I wiped off the top of a wave as I nervously tried to weave though the poles and had to waterstart smack in the middle of all the poles and bouys. Things improved after that and soon I was whizzing in and out, making slight rig adjustments.

Somewhere along the line my fin came loose and I lost it somewhere near the beach. The result of that was a 360 degree rotation of the board, followed by a faceplant right near the beach, fin gone, perhaps someone will find it at low tide. I'm pretty glad it happened near the beach, otherwise it could have been an ugly swim back.

Labels: Melbourne, Windsurfing

New Windsurf Board

I Finally got some good wind on a weekend to try out the new board
(Tabou Rocket 105) :-)
Went to Ricketts Point (see google earth file attached). The bay had
very little wind when I arrived, then switched on to around 25 knots
in the space of 10 minutes, built up to around 35 knots over the next
3 hours then tapered off. Started off with a 6.7sqm then changed down
to 5.7sqm, was a little too much when it got to 35knots so I took some
photos(the sailor in the pic is not me, that's some Polish dude)
There's a nice grassy rigging area. The first other windsurfer I spoke
to moved from Cape Town in '96, what are the odds? Waves were about
1.5m just beyond the reef, they're like the waves at Sterkfontein as
opposed to having any kind of gap between, still getting a bit chicken
going over these things at speed. The board is awesome, planes easily,
nice and stable, not sure about the pink starfish on it.

Labels: Windsurfing

My First Windsurf in Melbourne...

...was a little disappointing. I think I expected a little more wind than there actually was so I left the 9.5sqm sail at home. Nicky and Cayley came along so it wasn't complete loss.

Labels: Melbourne, Windsurfing

GPS Test Drive

I bought a Garmin Nuvi 260W car GPS navigator today. It's a fairly basic unit, with a nice big screen for my dodgy eyesight. The other similar unit is the Tom Tom One XL but it doesn't speak the road names, that was a good enough reason to choose the Garmin.

I decided to take a drive down to Sandringham to learn how to use it, practice driving around the Aussie roads and go visit a windsurfing shop at the beach. 4 birds with 1 stone, cool. There's a new freeway that opens tomorrow called the East Link that would cut the travel time quite considerably, and unfortunately  the GPS decided that was the best route for me to take so kept directing me from one closed on-ramp to the next. Only after I got home did I realize that it's a toll road and I can set the Nuvi to avoid tolls, so the drive took a lot longer than expected. Other than that it's a very easy thing to use, only took a few minutes to get the hang of it.

As you can see it's overcast and not warm enough for actual beach-going but it was nice to go there anyway. I had quite a long chat with Ivan from SHQ about the local wind conditions, where to sail, what kit is suitable etc most of which I'll have forgotten by the time I actually get to do some sailing. From the boards available in the shop, it seems that not many people use boards bigger than 100 litres, so something else new to learn. It looks like my gear will arrive in September so that should be just in time for some summer sailing. It's going to be sweet!

Labels: Windsurfing

Goodbye to an old windsurfing buddy

I had to say goodbye to my windsurfing partner of 9 years today. *sniff*

From Moletedi to Hartebeespoort to Grootdraai to Bronkhorstspruit to Sterkfontein Dam, she's been carrying my windsurfing gear. I had to sell because I'm off to Melbourne soon. Hopefully the new owner will drive the open road with the wind in your roofracks. So long ol' buddy...

Labels: Windsurfing

5sqm @ Bronkies

Sunday was awesome, I've never seen wind like that at Bronkies before. Saturday night we were camping outside Gabi's cabin because we couldn't find the key. At 10:30am there wasn't a leaf moving, by 11:00am it was close on 20knots and at around 3pm we were getting our butts kicked in 30knots. There's definitely a pattern emerging there, the big days are usually quiet in the morning.

I put my new top speed on the GPS, taking me over the 30knots mark, 30.36knots (56.2km/h) and the first time I've sailed a 5.7sqm sail at Bronkies.

My pictures(below) came out quite badly, so I'm going to include a few of Malcolm's photos. There are a few more in the photo gallery at http://www.windsurfingafrica.org

Malcolm's pics:

Although most of us had at least one wipe-out like that, unfortunately for Jeremy he got caught on camera.

'Til the next windy day...

Labels: Windsurfing

Soul Sailing 2007 - Mozambique

It's that time of year again, and after last year's almost windless week, we went to Mozambique instead. Here's how it went down:

Thursday Afternoon - around tea time

9 people in all, we set off in 3 cars with Andre's large speed boat and headed for the border at the breakneck speed of 90kph getting 3km per litre of petrol. On the right is the 4.8L land cruiser that sounded very much like a WWII plane towing the boat. Gabi spent most of the drive fiddling with the dials and buttons on his new tourag while Malcolm played short samples of 80s music on his iPod before skipping to the next song. After visiting most of the petrol stations along the way, we arrived at the border just before 12 midnight. After employing a local to negotiate our way through the border, and making sure the right people got their back-handers, we made it into Mozambique. Just inside the border we stayed the night at Casa-de-something-or-other in what seemed to be an old farmhouse. The seemed quite happy to open the bar at 1am for us so we sampled some of the local beer before hitting the sack.

 Friday morning we were on the road to Maputo, which has quite different scenery to the South African side of the border: grass and bushes as far as you can see, with the occasional small huts, at least the road is in good condition. More dial twiddling, ipod skipping, daft photos etc.

Arriving in Maputo, we launched the boat at the School-de-Nautica after some more back-handed negotiations with the authorities about the number of life-jackets on board and although there actually are 9 life jackets, only 6 were written down. There's always time to find the pub and for Malcolm to assault the local wildlife.

A 2 hour crawl across the bay because we packed enough food and drink for about 30 people and a full load of fuel which made the boat was too heavy to get on the plane. Inhaca island never seemed to get any closer.

Between the island and the mainland there are large tidal sand flats, and we luckily timed the tides just right to get in, otherwise we could have been stuck on the sand for a few hours more. It also took a bit of walking to find Ponta Torres Camp, so by then it was too shallow to get the boat close to the shore. All the gear had to be waded in knee-deep water, that's when we realized how much crap we had brought along.

Ponta Torres is a tented camp with wooden decking to walk around the main camp, electricity, hot running water, excellent cooking facilities. Malcolm, Gabi and I (the 3 windsurfers) chose a tent overlooking the beach so we wouldn't have to carry the windsurfing gear too far.

Saturday morning was raining so we sms'd Julian to let him know what a terrible time we were having (muchly exaggerated of course!). What we didn't tell him was that it cleared up in the afternoon and we had enough wind for a short sail. In addition to getting the timing right for the tides to arrive, it seems that we got lucky with the timing for the wind as well, because the high tide was in the afternoons while we were there, which made for good sailing. At low tide the entire area empties out so it looks like you could walk back to Maputo, and when the tide comes in there is a completely protected area with very little tidal current. It also means that you can sail about 4+ km and still waist deep water all the way. The gap between the mainland and Inhaca island is called Hell's Gate and has a current flowing at the change of the tides but as long as you stay clear of that it's very safe. For windsurfing there is approximately 4 hours of sailable time at high tide before it gets too shallow. Malcolm and Gabi managed to find some rocks to injure themselves on. That evening we dined on that crabs that Gabi bought from the locals and sashimi that Andre and his fishing crew had caught.

Sunday was a lot clearer than the other days and was the best day we had for sailing. The wind blew a constant 15 knots at high tide and we spent a couple of hours blasting up and down. Malcolm also brought his camera out (about 2km from the shore) and we took turns standing in the waist deep water while the other 2 sailed up and down posing for pictures. With the wind blowing NE we had very clean wind coming through Hell's Gate, we just had sail about 1km out to get clear of the land.

Eventually we ran out of water and after the first catapults on the sand-banks, we half-waded, half-sailed back to the beach.

Monday had plenty of wind but we had to wait for the tide to come in before we could sail. We spent the morning walking along the beach waiting for the tide to come in. Unfortunately with the wind blowing from the SE we chose a bad spot to sail and had very gusty wind coming over the hills, I suppose this is how we learn. If we had moved to the other side of the lagoon we would have had very clean wind again.

Tuesday morning we packed up the boat before high tide (moored about 1km down the beach) and headed back to Maputo. Without the grub and booze, the boat had no problem getting on the plane even though we had an extra person, so the trip back across the bay was much faster. The trip back to the border was fairly uneventful, although once through the border then the problems began. A puncture on the land cruiser towing the boat forced us to stop to change it. A little while later the spare suffered the same fate. By this time it was dark, so we put the 2 spare wheels from the boat on the land cruiser so that they were the same size. After hitching the boat onto Gabi's tourag we got another phone call, nobody tightened the wheel nuts on the one side, so the wheel came off and bounced a few 100m into a nearby field. Luckily nobody got hurt and the wheel could be put back on. Eventually at about 2:30am I got home after the boat was unhitched and people dropped off at homes. Up for work 4 hours later was not pleasant.

Travel Notes

• In early October there were very few mosquitos around so I imagine malaria risk is very much reduced (although you should still take precautions)
• Take a lot of small notes of currency because R100 notes are difficult to change once out of the city. R10 and R20 notes are needed for tips etc for the locals. It also means you don't have to get any of the local currency as change which feels like it's been in someone's sweaty armpit all day. Soggy paper that feels like it will come apart in your hands.
• The water at Ponta Torres was perfectly drinkable, however I wouldn't trust the water in Maputo, drink bottled water there.

All in all, a very successful soul sailing tour and I'm sure it will be high on the list as a candidate for next year's soul sailing trip.

Labels: Windsurfing

On board at 43 knots

Via thomasr.org

Labels: Windsurfing

Sailing speed record falls again!

Labels: Windsurfing

Someone has been living under a rock

Labels: Windsurfing

4 day forecast

Labels: Windsurfing