Excellent day at Weston. Arrived to find Timo rigging up and SteveG doing the guinea pig thing. He looked to be nicely powered up on a 6m and Timo was rigging 6.5/95 so I plumped for 6.5 on my Naish 112 thinking I'd benefit from a bit more float. By now Adrian had arrived too, along with Justin and Lorraine. We all admired the new high tide marking flag introduced to control the car parking. Good idea.
Hit the water around 11, an hour or so before high tide. Did a couple of runs well powered up before deciding the Naish was a bit too bouncy so I swapped it for the Kombat 96 and stayed on that for the next 3 hours. Had a great time blasting up and down, a lot of the time chasing Adrian and watching him practice his one-handed jumps. I could also see Timo way upwind going for long runs all the way across the bay. Another Tushie sail appearing out the back later turned out to be Martin who was making a rare appearance at WSM. Even rarer was Al, who had arrived for his annual sail. Justin and Lorraine waited for high tide to pass before getting wet but then stayed out for an hour after everyone else, but eventually they were frightened off the water when Adrian went back out with his kite to practice dive bombing them. Maybe that was why they pretended to enjoy the long walk back.
We hung around the van after for a bit of a post sail chat and wind down in the sunshine which by now was fully beating down. I finally dragged myself away around 4.30 after a great day. I was even surprised to find some sunburn when I got home.
As Timo said Sunday was not great, we did the hanging about the Van but without the windsurfing or even a BBQ. It was probably the best attended Nomad session of the year, Phil (after a break of 2 years), Tim, Ian and Neroli (with Axel), New member Rob and Adrian all letting hope beat common sense.
Unlike last year the Sun stayed away and gave no encouragement to get wet, although it didn't stop a family of grockles going for a traditional paddle hitching up trousers and skirts.
The wind keep a gentle breeze occasionally gusting to near double figures but never near the 15 MPH quoted on the BBC, and certainly not enough to encourage me to get my kit dirty after its good wash as Axbridge on Saturday.
Rob at least got wet with a Body board. The rest of us various hot drinks and lots of hot air during the chat which was very pleasant if a little frustrating.
The high point was watching the only windsurfer trying to launch his Slalom board with a 9.4M sail. After several failed attempts he wobbled out nowhere near planning. He went so far our Tim and I were getting a little worried as he could not been seen for some time. Eventually he wobbled back in and that was it.
One by one we left. I think my better half Val had the best day as she wondered out as soon as the conversation turned to windsurfing and went off to the other end of the town to find something to point the camera at.
As Matt and Timo have said Saturday was a great blast and I think all I could have managed on Sunday was the coffee and chat as I had a few windsurf aches! All worth it though and looking forward to next weekends gale as forecast by Timo!
It was great to get back out at WSM on Saturday, finally let out for good behaviour! Some very easy (for WSM) conditions but very enjoyable all the same, and given my current fitness level (zero) it was very manageable with 5.7m sail. Some very nice little waves to play with on the way back in, sunshine and quite warm too, and nice to catch up with Adrian, Matt and Martin, & Justin & Lorraine at last, and meet the newbies. Hopefully it won't be another year before I get out again! When are the next evening tides...!
Obviously wasn't as cloudy as I thought.