As I was getting ready to head home from work, a number of people were making comment about how much wind was kicking up - that perked my interest and I checked the reports. WPB was blowing from the SE at nearly 20 mph!!! I headed home and packed my gear and away I went. Well, from the track below, you can tell it was an interesting session.
The first half was actually really fun - perfect amount of wind for the 5.2 wing and I was able to get up on foil quick as I had the HS1850 bolted on. I even stayed up on foil on my transitions despite the significant chop in the water. I tried to get as far upwind as I could early on so I would have slop to mess with riding waves. I did catch a few and rode them in goofy (with some pressure in the wing). Then the fun really started.
A little less than halfway through this session, the wind totally shifted and dropped off in strength significantly. From that point on I was schlogging just trying to get back as close to WPB as I could. You can see it was a long time getting back in from the way outside.
Eli and Kalani were also out. Eli made it in before the wind died - and he was kind enough to tell Marlon that I probably would make landfall over at Campgrounds - which was 100% true. Marlon was waiting on the beach for me and helped get my gear back to the truck.
It's totally ok to eat humble pie every now and then. This was still a really fun session (while the wind was up).
I need to mention a few really cool things that happened - first, while I was down after the wind shifted, I booby (bird) came flying straight to where I was sitting - just flew over me to check out what was going on. Second - I passed up a few rather large omilu swimming pretty far offshore (but in still relatively shallow water - there were breaking waves so it had to have been shallower than the surrounding areas). And lastly it isn't all that often that you get to actually be in a wind stream exactly when a significant directional shift occurs. Yes it totally sucked having to schlogg and paddle back in - but being there while that happened was pretty cool!!!
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