Corpus Christi Trip: July 25-27

Don't let Summer pass without a few lazy Windsurfing trips to the coast.

If you're a new recruit, you can get a feel for the experience by reading the previous trip posts on the blog. You'll see a pattern: we carpool directly down to Worldwinds where we spend several hours windsurfing on warm Laguna Madre. The beginners will be cruising around on the water after an hour of instruction from the Worldwinds crew.

After enjoying the beach, we drive to our hotels Downtown. There we desalinate before walking to a restaurant to fill ourselves with fresh seafood, tapas, sushi, homemade Italian, or hamburgers. We'll wash the food down with a few beers, margaritas, or Mojitos. After that, we may play a few rounds of foosball, walk along the shoreline at night, or simply enjoy the nightlife. The next day, we do it over again, starting with fresh coffee and a nice breakfast.

Follow these five simple steps to Join in the fun.

You'll need a a place to stay one night starting Friday the 25th, checking out Sunday the 27th. I suggest sharing rooms and carpooling. Most hotel rooms in the Corpus area have two queen-size beds.

You can check out the suggested packing list here. Feel free to comment, send me a mail, or give a ring if you have any questions. See you on the beach!

Trip Report 13-15 June 2008

A passing stranger asked me what size sail I was rigging early Friday afternoon. He got a funny look on his face when I said 6.5 meter. I felt the same way. A bigger sail would have been nice for the light breeze. But I only own one sail. On windy days I sail a 6.5. On still days I sail a 6.5.

Lucky for me, the wind didn't wait long to get serious. While the wind grew to fit my sail, the stranger struggled with an overpowered 8.0.

I was thrilled to get enough wind to plane. My goal this weekend was to get my feet into both foot straps, and a light breeze wouldn't cut it.

Up to this point I had only managed to slip in the front straps. When I mentioned this problem to Angela at Worldwinds, she said the back strap was much easier than the front for her.

With this encouraging thought, I returned to the water. I easily planed with my front foot strapped in. I could easily get my back foot next to its strap too. But when I lifted my back foot to slide it in, the board immediately carved upwind. I was sinking the rail, but I couldn't really see how to prevent it.

Just like the harness and the front foot strap, the maneuver felt a lot more dangerous than it was. Even as I flubbed the back foot strap, 80% of the time I was able to recover by stepping to the mast and tacking, or by simply turning back downwind. When that didn't work, I simply fell over backwards with almost no speed.

After rocketing around Laguna Madre for several hours, I drove downtown to the hotel to clean up. I met Jonathan and Marty at the Executive Surf Club where we played a few games of foosball before dinner at Waterstreet Seafood Co. After that, we watched a band play at Bourbon Rocks.

Saturday morning, I met Jonathan and Marty at the City Diner for breakfast. We carpooled down to world winds as we listened to You Look Nice Today. Jason met us at the beach.

Jonathan and Marty practiced for a while before their class with Olivier. Much to their surprise, Olivier had them wear a harness for what they thought would be an intermediate class. Despite their initial reluctance to strap a sail to their waist, they did well. It was difficult to believe this was their second trip to Corpus.

Meanwhile, Jason finally pulled the trigger and purchased his own windsurfing rig. He got a completely new rig: a Maui Sails "Switch" 6.4 meter sail, a JP Australia X-cite ride 160 board, and a very light 55% carbon mast.

After surfing, all of us met Carlos and Vincent at Aka Sushi for dinner. Jonathan, Carlos, and Vincent left a little early to set up for their performance as Milhouse. The rest of us then met up with them at the Mug Room to watch the show. Although the bar was freezing inside, the show was quite entertaining. I think everyone agreed it was sophisticated too.

Sunday morning, I got coffee at Agua Java before we all met for breakfast at La Bahia.

At the beach, Marty and Jonathan rigged up with bigger sails for more harness practice. I went out to take a few more shots at the back foot strap. Meanwhile Jason assembled a new roof rack on his Civic.

Jonathan was really hauling on a 180 liter board. Both the Worldwinds staff and I tried to convince him to get a smaller board or bigger sail, but he seemed content to practice harness with the board he had.

After a few hours on the water, I came in for a break. While I was hydrating, I told Randy of Worldwinds about my frustration with the back foot strap. He suggested that I put the toes of my back foot directly on top of the back foot strap. Once I got stable in that position, I could pivot my foot into the strap without lifting it.

I returned to the water and tried Randy's suggestion. I easily put my foot on top of the back foot strap, but I had a hard time using only my toes. Gradually, through sheer force of will, I pulled my toes back to the edge of the strap. As my toes fell off the top, I pushed them under the pad. For a tantalizing instant before the board lost power carving upwind, my toes were in the strap.

Determined to get it to work, I repeated the exercise. This time, I focused on keeping the sail powered, and struggled to keep the board level by pushing with my front toes. As soon as my back foot found the strap's opening, I jammed it in hard. The board again turned upwind slightly, but this time I corrected the motion by getting low and pushing through my toes.

It took a few seconds for the exciting truth to register: I was finally planing in both straps. I did it!

As I experimented with my stance in the straps, I found that I could really lean out and back now that I was anchored to the board. I could also lean the sail back enough to nearly touch the foot of the sail to the deck. Going upwind was also much easier; it felt like I could rocket directly into it. Straps are fun.

Like many windsurfing skills, the straps felt almost trivially easy after only doing it once. After I tacked at the end of my first back strap run, I jammed my feet into the straps like I had been doing it all my life. What was the big deal again?

The Ultimate Windsurfing Tool

Since purchasing my own windsurfing equipment last year, the largest bane to my windsurfing existence has been my mast. The mast comes in two halves; the top of one half slides into the bottom of the other half to make a really long pole. After a few hours of compression in the sail, bouncing on waves, and cooking in the sun, the two halves cement together almost inseparably. This causes a giant headache at packing time; disassembly will require tug-of-war with a friend.

Sand, salt, or dirt are the real problem. Little particles of whatnot in the joint act like glue holding the halves together.

Yesterday I unveiled my new secret weapon: a $2 bottle brush. I vigorously scrubbed both sides of the connection before assembling the mast. As always, I used a bit of electrical tape to seal the joint. Then I surfed in Lake Travis for three hours.

When I returned to shore to pack, I felt the usual dread. Would the mast come apart this time? I removed my fin, twisted the boom off, released the downhaul, and pulled the mast from the sail.

My apprehension increased as I peeled the black tape from the mast. I grasped each half of the mast in one hand and pulled. To my surprise, the two halves slid apart easier than uncapping a pen. Victory!

I love my bottle brush.

Corpus Christi Trip: June 13-15

When the temperature gets into the 90's, nothing feels better than windsurfing on the coast. Since summer is here, I'm forced to conclude that nothing could feel better than joining us Wind Addicts in Corpus Christi.

If you're a new recruit, you can get a feel for the experience by reading the previous trip posts on the blog. You'll see a pattern: we carpool directly down to Worldwinds where we spend several hours windsurfing on warm Laguna Madre. The beginners will be cruising around on the water after an hour of instruction from the Worldwinds crew.

After enjoying the beach, we drive to our hotels Downtown. There we desalinate before walking to a restaurant to fill ourselves with fresh seafood, tapas, sushi, homemade Italian, or hamburgers. We'll wash the food down with a few beers, margaritas, or Mojitos. After that, we may play a few rounds of foosball, walk along the shoreline at night, or simply enjoy the nightlife. The next day, we do it over again, starting with fresh coffee and a nice breakfast.

We will be joined by rock stars this trip. The Austin Band Milhouse will be playing at the Mug Room at 9pm on Saturday the 14th. They may even join us windsurfing!

Follow these five simple steps to Join in the fun.

You'll need a a place to stay one night starting Friday the 13th, checking out Sunday the 15th. I suggest sharing rooms and carpooling. Most hotel rooms in the Corpus area have two queen-size beds.

You can check out the suggested packing list here. Feel free to comment, send me a mail, or give a ring if you have any questions. See you on the beach!

July Windsurfing

Unbelievable. I haven't even sent out invites for June and folks are already itching to plan a July trip to Corpus Christi.

You can vote for your favorite July weekend by commenting on this post. Please also express your opinion on three-day vs. two-day trips. I personally prefer a three day trip so my vacation feels like more surfing and less driving.

Trip Report: 17,18 April 2008

I was excited to pick up my board at Worldwinds Saturday. The repairs look nearly seamless, and the cost came in a bit below estimate.

The wind on Bird Island blew around 8-10 MPH. Since wind was light, Angela kindly gave Jason and I a dry-land demonstration of backwinded sailing and how to perform a helitack to return to normal sailing. In English, backwinded sailing means standing behind the sail -- the lee side -- and pushing rather than pulling on the boom.

For obvious reasons, folks don't try this freestyling feat on windy days -- the sail would simply flip the rider into the water. Even in light wind it doesn't take much to get swept into the drink.

Since the mechanics reverse on the back side of the sail, pushing with the back hand sheets the sail in. Since sheeting in makes the sail try harder to crush you, Angela suggested avoiding the issue by sailing with only the front hand holding the boom.

The helitack (technically I think it's just the bit at the end of a helitack) is a trick for flipping yourself back around to normal sailing from backwinding. To achieve this miracle, one simply tilts the mast forward, pushes on the clew side of the boom, and spins with the sail. Now you're sailing clew-first. Finally, you release the clew hand and let the sail flip back to the normal mast first position. Easier said than done.

On the water, backwinded sailing proved tricky. My first attempts mostly became accidental tacks. The other attempts were downwind sail smashes and board-flippers.

I am an uphauling machine. I uphauled so much that I actually learned new tricks to get the sail up. Instead of pulling straight up, I found that pulling the sail first in the direction of the mast made life significantly easier. If the mast lies to the right of the sail, pull the uphaul to the right, then up. And so on.

I got backwinded sailing working a few times, but I wasn't able to helitack the sail. Not even close. Even my successful backwind reaches only lasted a short time.

After sailing, we ate dinner at Waterstreet Seafood. While waiting for a table, we hung out at the "Tiki" bar in the courtyard and drank margaritas. Sadly, there was nothing Tiki about the bar. They didn't even have umbrellas for the drinks, much less bamboo and carved idols. The poor bartender complained to us about being left out to bake in the afternoon sun and of having the worlds worst bottle opener -- a coin-sized slab of metal roughly in the shape of Texas.

We were starving. Once inside the restaurant, Jason and I gorged ourselves on piles of food. First we ate two loaves of bread. Then we split a plate of dynamite sticks. Then salad followed by the entree. I forgot how uphauling breeds a huge appetite; water starts have made me lazy.

After dinner, we decided to get mojitos at Havana. We were both shocked to discover the windows papered over and Havana closed. We were able to peek inside where the decor was partially disassembled. I was very sad! We walked to Cassidy's Irish Pub to drown our sorrows in a dark glass of Guinness. We later learned from a Hooters waitress that Havana was just renovating.

After leaving Cassidy's we returned to the Hotel where we caught the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Fun film, but the scene where the tank drives off the cliff is just about the worst special effect ever. Whoever was responsible: better luck rotoscoping next time.

After Indiana Jones, Timeline came on. For those who don't know, this was based on a Crichton novel. The one where someone who mostly isn't Bill Gates invents a time machine so that irritating archaeologists and marines can visit Medieval France. I can't believe that anyone watched this in the theaters and didn't ask for a refund. I have to rent it for a future movie night -- it will be funnier than ducks.

The film starts with a pile of cut scenes arranged like it was reviewing the last episode of Lost. Of course, there is no previous episode: it's a dang movie. The film was just performing the jitterbug through major plot points. Warp speed to the time machine! The story became so insulting that we were forced to turn it off.

The wind wasn't much better on Sunday, but at least the sun didn't hide behind the clouds. I cruised around and practiced my backwinded sailing. Backwinding became easier once I convinced my brain to see the similarity to tacking. Instead of pointing the board into the wind, I just hopped around the mast and tried to balance with the sail pushing against me.

Once behind the sail, the biggest trick is maintaining course. Turn too far upwind or downwind and you loose the mojo. Despite some improvements, I still spent a lot of time in the water. Sometimes I think light wind days are more challenging than howling gales.

One mistake I think I made was stiff-arming the sail when backwinding. I didn't really think about it until I reached I-37, but keeping my arm bent probably would have made balancing easier. That way I would have room to shove the sail both back and forward without changing my posture.

I summoned the bravery to attempt a few helitack spins from the backwinded position. Sadly, I always ended up with the sail irretrievably low when I got around to the windward side. Sometimes I fell with the sail, sometimes I was just left standing on board empty-handed. Still, even a failed helitack had excitement to spare.

I look forward to future light wind days.

June Windsurfing

I just consulted my calendar and found that June comes after May. Oh no, the year is almost half over!

If you'd like to come down to Corpus Christi for more windsurfing, let me know by commenting below. If you can't make it for a particular weekend, let me know by commenting below.

Thanks guys. I hope to see you on the beach!