Tall thick deciduous trees were doing the mambo while flights in and out of New York airports were being held on the ground and in the air. Wind advisory. The water surface in tuggy the tugboat had frozen overnight. Winter reprise.

We missed rendezvous with Sir George Knight of Marr by a few hairs. George went on to have a starboard tack jumping bonanza at West Meadow, culminating in the breakage of his beloved RRD Wave 1.

West Neck on the other hand was mostly port ramps, very little starboard to speak of.

More RRD: Mustang! "thanks for letting me try your Cult 55, loved it, excellent combo of lose but still positive, smooth, yet high floating-on-air ride. that thing feels light as a feather." Do we put two and two together and wonder about the construction. It's such a sweet ride, maybe worth taking the chance?

The Bayville Gorge as usual
wind in effect at West Neck
about 5 over

PS. Mustang, do you remember a flat landing near the beach? We could hear it from upwind on the shoreline!!

Lots of fun had at WN today good swell for a while when the wind was doing the raging 4.0 - 4.7 thing. Talk about user-friendly with the sideshore approach. My first time there with 4.0 spells and an outgoing current. I'll be up for that again.

"ffptfftptfffpspt" <-- that's the sound of me eating crow. Bolling you wuz right. I like variety, so it's nice to have another fun option for when it cranks.

Pete 'Cabinets' Roesch put some serious mileage his Richie Buehn vintage Olympic gun, and sailed like he was wearing a favorite pair of Levis . . . without the fading. Mustang was nailing his Hookipa-preparation tacks like a pro today, while he continued the quest to see just how far into 4.0 territory he could take his Cult Fifty-Five. And that was further than he'd guessed. He only had to unzip the 70 liter 'trouble' JP Wave a couple of times, when a touch of wildness blew in.

Pete on the Ezzy 4.5 wasn't feeling any undue stress in the gusts. Those must be some well-designed sails, because the best of the gusts were spray tossers.

After far too long fussing with different gloves (the comfortable ones with the worn out holes were too leaky for the frigid water) and messing with harness lines, life was sweet on the old Open Ocean. In the lulls the 4.2 (vintage Hurricane Super-Nuker model) on the JP Wave 258 was fine. Kevin 'Barney Bud' joined in later on a 4.2 and we left him that way blasting till sunset.

After what felt like nearly a month without windsurfing I was pretty rusty, so West Neck's smooth swell was a nice re-introduction. Missed the Starboard ramps of WM, but the The Neck's starboard tack swell riding made up for it.

P.S. Barney the dog did beach patrol for the day, but in an un-newfoundlandy way took a pass on the swimming opportunity (at 84 dog-human years, we'll cut him some slack, and just say he looks darn good for his age! Must be all that hanging out at the beach.)