Epic (part one)

These are the photos of Tuesday March 2nd. Thanks to Alex Buiton (good luck with the recovery of that broken foot) for taking them.

The reason this one is the first one is not because it's the best, but because it's me... da hell, being the blog author got to give me some privileges!
I'm not hitting the lip, I'm not doing an aerial, but I'm doing a turn right under the lip in a very steep section of a decent size wave and I'm pretty happy with it.


Best photo, instead, is the usual Levi.
He was absolutely on fire. I remember in particular this one wave (not the one in the photo). I had just kicked out off my wave, so I was downwind and on the inside and I had the best possible point of view.
The speed at which he did his turns was something that my brain refused to believe. It looked like a video game, or a sped up clip. Bum-bum, bum-bum, up-down, up-down.
That was the best windsurfing I've seen live. I can't even imagine what it must be to be sailing with the good guys at Ponta Preta...
Anyway, just by watching him on that wave, I learned that I have to crank that back hand more in the bottom turn and be closer to wave face. Thanks for the lesson brah.


And now have a look at these next two, 'cause I have a story...
Unfortunately, the first one is pretty dark (not blaming Alex, he did a good job to be the first time using my shitty little camera), but it definitely shows the size of the wave. And you know what? That wave looked just like that even from my point of view: big, black and mean. It completely obscured the sunlight and put me in some dark scary shade. The wind had suddenly dropped to zero and I had no way to escape when the wall of water heavily collapsed on me.

No big deal, we've all had mast high wipeouts many times... it can actually be kind of fun if you manage to relax underwater.
This time though, a little problem occurred. I was dropping my gear (hands off the boom and feet off the straps) while being hit by the water, when I felt the harness accidentally hooking in the harness lines... good luck at relaxing and enjoying like that! Absolute terror is what I felt instead.

The force and pressure of the water was so hard that I had no control whatsoever over my limbs: couldn't put my hands back on the boom, couldn't even put them on my head to protect it! I was getting pounded as hard as ever because not only the water was making me do the usual washing machine cycle, but also I was violently pulled in all directions by my gear that I was still connected to.
I was expecting the board to hit me at any time, but luckily that didn't happen... just a really big scare. You guys (and myself) can laugh about it now, but at the moment it was frightening.


See my sail? I'm probably still under it and hooked in... and that's just the end of the wipeout.


Allright, chronological order from now on.
Moi.


Levi.


Levi.


Glenn.


Nico.


Palmi.


Moi.


Moi.


Glenn.


Moi.


Levi.


Levi.


Moi.


Moi.


Blurred, but it shows moi on another another big one. Couldn't do the section because I wanted to be where the other sailor was... and you call them friends!!! At least I didn't get worked by that one.


Oh, hi Glenn!


Moi.


Moi.


As you saw it was just five of us, all friends. That made the session extra special. I feel like mentioning that Dave saw Nick hitting the water at around 7.30am and killing it too.
In the meantime, Alex B. put online the photos he took with his camera on Monday. Thanks for putting that skirt between two shots of moi.

Yesterday (Wednesday) it was only me and Glenn. It looked like shit from the beach: small and super light, but once we got out we found head high peelers and plenty super offshore wind. It ended up being a really fun session, since after two bigger days we felt like we could push it a bit more. Towards the end Chris replaced Glenn (whose arms were falling off) and it was another great day of wave sailing.
I need to rest today.
Too bad I probably won't.

Stay tuned for the video.

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