Squamish Saturday

[8mdude]

I can't imagine it was westerly since lots of wind in the river. Overpowered on 4.5 m and 90L board. Awesome day though so tired because first time back windsurfing. Body is sore and bit my lips because I hit a big log (board and fin are ok though)-- well my fault wasn't paying attention as I was enjoying so much and singing out loud while no one can hear me. Thanks Adrien for checking on me after my little accident.

Finished the day with Alton's good company at Mag's 99 and enjoyed my free Mags'99 coupon.

[C36]

So how was it? Curious to see what it was like, was it as west as the graph showed? Did that mess things up?

No. Graph is a little misleading (both direction and speed - speed did more a gradual apex at the spit). As Alton mentioned it was WSW the whole day. Glad I packed the 4.5 as a afterthought. It was windy. You could sail deep in the river is you wished. Arrived at the spit around 12 noon when graph shows it was gusting to 30 (and it was). Ate my lunch as it ramped up gusting to 35 (and it was). Rigged in unsettled wind (glass patches rolling through mixed with some swirling gusts). Took to the water before 1 pm and it settled in pretty well. Wind was clean and water was organized - you could find swell and small flatter sections too. Only tomb stoned (stalled) once on first ride out into the sound to make it up to the river. The funny part is it started to easy off about 3:30 pm and by 4 pm I could just keep my stuff planning (that isn't shown in the graph either). AG, Mike, François and myself spent most of our time in the river. Saw AG fully rotate one super powered forward to spot a dry landing (only to have the rig explode from his hands). He did another later deeper in the river that looked more controlled (not so hectic) and seemed landing clean and sailed away! Cold water in the river but not so cold you couldn't try stuff and it was nice with the sun. Massimo arrived just as I was leaving and getting rides on his new board! Fun afternoon that!

I'll post a few before-sailing and after-sailing pictures later.

WARNING: There is one stump below the high tide water just NW of the root ball on the relocated 'big' tree in the river (I know because I thumped it - lucky was just spolling up at the time).

[Michael]

Glad to hear you guys had a great day!

[LeopardSkin]

...enjoyed my free Mags'99 coupon.

Where do you get them.

[8mdude]

...enjoyed my free Mags'99 coupon.

Where do you get them.

It's a secret.

[C36]

Glad to hear you guys had a great day!

Sorry you weren't there enjoying it too.

Gallery (better for mobile devices)
Slideshow

[AdrienGrelon]

Awesome first real day back on the river, back on the freestyle kit! 103l Flare + 4.8m S1 - sail was at times a bit too much and at times just right. Glad to share the day with a lot of the usual suspects, and thanks to Mike for spotting me some sunscreen.

The only time it went realllllyyyyy west was around 5-5:15pm when it was just Massimo, myself and one other kiter left. I called it at that point.

First of many great days this season I'm sure Flakas and spocks were very rusty (not a single one claimed today), and the long road to the shaka and/or shoveit has begun with many crashes. A few good loops were had! Won't be long before ankle dry full planing ones are happening in the river

Thanks for mentioning the river log/stump situation, Dave.. it is not to be taken lightly this year... A few of those stumps could be extremely dangerous. It would be great if we could get a chainsaw over there during a low tide and bust them up. Short of that, I will probably wire up some homemade markers so that we know where they are. Crashing a freestyle move or gybe and going head first into one of those partially submerged could be a quick KO...

[Mike]

This was my first video test. Not as bad as I thought it would be given the glare off the water. The second one is aiming the other direction and noticeably better. The original is actually more clear (no blur) than what uploaded to u-tube. Can still tell who's who by the sail. Would have liked to have caught an Adrien loop but bonked my board nose with my mast so a bit of a shorter recording stretch than I might have had. Took about 25 minutes of video. Could scan through quite quickly on Windows Movie Maker. Took awhile to figure out how to crop (it's been a while and things seemed to have changed).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1jZNtAxlMI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMj6dRL ... e=youtu.be

[AdrienGrelon]

Nice, Mike! Thanks for catching one of my ghastly shoveit/Shaka attempts at 0:31. Still thousands of attempts to be done before I'll do a good one, but this first clip is already helpful!

Massimo and I are going to be breaking out the GoPro for technique analysis as of next weekend, too.

[C36]

This was my first video test...

Nice video work Mike and even better vulcan (2:39)!

Haha! You caught be pretending I was sailing the south Oregon coast (2:12-2:30) then exiting out of the river to repeat (3:00). Thanks for sharing!