La Ventana 2017 (Day 1 - S1+2)

[Alton]

Phew! Glad you made it back in and Ethan scored a kite session. La Ventana looks like a fun place to ride.

[Vero]

Great pics Dave! Bringing back good memories. I was there in November during the Makani trip and stayed at ProWindsurf La Ventana with Tyson Poor and Wyatt Miller. We had a blast! Here are some videos from the trip:

https://vimeo.com/193821648
https://vimeo.com/199422007

It was early in the season and we did not get the big "Norte" but it was super warm and I was out on the water almost every day. This place is awesome!

[C36]

Phew! Glad you made it back in and Ethan scored a kite session. La Ventana looks like a fun place to ride.

Me too ~ I considered stopping to tie the uphaul from clew to boom head on the damaged side, but decided to keep moving as long as I could and told myself I would try that if the arm broke cleanly (although the opportunity may have been lost at that point). One other afterthought was I could have flipped the boom over and used the remaining strong arm to sail back in (with the uphaul for tension on the 'broken side'). One other observation - boom had a carbon tail piece in aluminum arms and broke just beyond the end of the tail piece and I wondered if the carbon tail was too stiff for the softer aluminum arms and one finally failed at the pressure point. Although the water was 'warm' I wouldn't have wanted to spend hours in it getting back to shore (from memory water cools 25 times faster than air). Even without a long swim, I had a chill at the end of the day.

Great pics Dave! Bringing back good memories. I was there in November during the Makani trip and stayed at ProWindsurf La Ventana with Tyson Poor and Wyatt Miller. We had a blast! Here are some videos from the trip:

https://vimeo.com/193821648
https://vimeo.com/199422007

It was early in the season and we did not get the big "Norte" but it was super warm and I was out on the water almost every day. This place is awesome!

Nice videos. I am a big fan of Nicolas' SBX videos.



I appreciated all of the other comments as well. Thanks.

Last day of the trip there was some leftover wind swell breaking down at 'mushrooms' (the break south of PWLV), but we only had time to take advantage of the smaller swell out in front of Casa Verde. But any day you get to SUP in board shorts is a good day and being out there with Ethan made it even better!



We briefly had front row seats for the Los Bariiles 300 as we were stopped on our trip south to let racers cross Highway 1. Fun! Then passed about six Mexican army desert camo clad Hummers covered with troops armed with automatic weapons. A little unnerving.

This was really a trip for Ethan and I was hoping for gentle afternoon thermals (like the more 'typical' conditions in the graph below) so he could work on his skills.



Instead he took two days off with a stomach flu and El Norte shut lessons down for another day and a half.



So in the end Ethan had three kiteboarding sessions in total.

• Day 1 - 10 m jet ski lesson - 2.3 km downwinder
• Day 2 - 12 m jet ski lesion - launch and self-rescue practice
• Day 6 - 7 m 'ride along' lesson - 650 m downwinder

And he also got in two SUP sessions and he got to experience La Ventana (which he really enjoyed).

The El Norte was a bonus for me as I really wasn't expecting too much, but this turned out to be anything but a flat water trip with 14 sessions in six days for me (one flat water SUP, two small wave SUP, two real wave SUP, and nine windsurf).

Another great trip brought to a close with the words of the locals and visitors still ringing in my ears:
"...we've never had a Norte on our trips...", Joe
"...four trips down and this is the best wind I've seen...", Tom
"...the second week the wind was much better...", Philippe
"...occasionally we get a really nice left right out in front...", Kenny @ Windsport Ventana
"...best waves I have seen since I have been here...", Phil @ Casa Verde

Thanks to all who helped make this great trip happen, including Joe, Garth, Jose and Kenny at Windsports Ventana, Phil and Emily at Casa Verde, Jennifer, Kay Kay, Kris, Peter and Marie at Elevation, and especially Ethan!

[ShonanDB]

Looks and sounds like you had a great trip!

[Michael]

Looks like you had an epic time! It was tough watching from here, my only consolation is that I'm 5 weeks out from Maui.

Great pics Dave! Bringing back good memories.

Great videos Vero nice to see your cameo appearance!

[Vero]

Great videos Vero nice to see your cameo appearance!

All credit goes to Nicolas Chapleau who installed a Go-Pro on my boom and sent me out!

[C36]

Fun way to start the day. Bonus that!

Some nice looking swell Dave, looks like you're having fun. Great timing as usual, nothing going on here. Hope Ethan gets out tomorrow. Thanks again for the reports. I noticed the go pro on the front of the board, looking forward to seeing some footage.

You would have enjoyed this week for sure! Good eye M! Windsports Ventana has all the toys for sure! Go Pro has been temperamental (so far). Best moments failed to get captured, so don`t expect much. Hopefully we get it sorted today (Day 6)!

Finally had a chance to start culling through the GoPro footage. These shots are more about the moment and some are fun. Hope you enjoy them!

Day 5 - S11 (FreeWave 115 + Severne Blade 5.3)


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Day 5 - S11 (FreeWave 115 + Severne Blade 5.3)
GoPro 'spin shots' - the GoPro came free of its mount and bounced and spun around to create some interesting effects.


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Day 6 - S13 (FreeWave 96 + Maui Sails Mutant 4.6)


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Day 6 - S13 (FreeWave 96 + Severne Gator 4.7)


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[Michael]

Thanks for sharing Dave, looks like you had lots of fun!

[C36]

Last installment from the trip. Likely a little longer than it should be (about 10 minutes instead of 2 ) and I find putting these together time consuming (you likely get more efficient at it with practice); and the impact of the POW is softened by the fish-eye lens that make playful fun-size wave look as flat as Squamish. Regardless, it still has a little bit of the feel of these sessions - gusty, stronger than typical wind playing in the wind swell right out in front of Windsports Ventana. Hope you enjoy it!



Jose from Windsport Ventana lent me a Go Pro for a few runs on two days. Many thanks! All footage was filmed playing in the wind swell right out in front of Windsports Ventana. There was an El Norte, so the wind was gustier and stronger than typical thermals. All the gear was rental equipment from Windsports Ventana, in order of appearance: Fanatic FreeWave 115 TE and Severne Blade 5.3; Fanatic FreeWave 96 and Maui Sails Mutant 4.6; and Fanatic FreeWave 96 and Severne Gator 4.7. Its a fun spot for sure! Many thanks to Jose at Windsports Ventana!

[Brian C]

Thanks Dave. That sure brings back some sweet memories! Wish I could duck gybe like that too! We can't wait to head back to LV next winter.
Brian and Mokka