Wes and I had been watching the weather reports for weeks... then we saw it:
Ellensburg - 20 to 30 with gusts to 40mph.
YES!! Classic Vantage conditions.
I took a quick peek at the Vantage cam. The glassy river was full of wind gusts... let's go!!
2 hours of packing the van
2.5 hours of driving
1 hour of rigging the smallest sails we own, stashing beer in the water (to cool down), and we're ripping!
Wes sailed for 15 minutes, then broke his boom in a big wipe out. He spent the next 2 hours swimming in 40mph wind and carrying his gear over rocks, etc. By the time he made it back to the beach the sun was going down.
I sailed for 2 hours in classic Vantage wind - the tops of the whitecaps were blown clean off, hitting me in the face. I found "Vantage Island" - the shallow spot in the middle of the river where Todd Regis clipped his boat prop just weeks earlier. Many times during the session i experienced the rag-doll-toss (getting thrown over the board/sail during a 40+mph gust).
As the sun was setting...
1 hour of packing and de-rigging
2.5 hours of driving to Seattle
and we're watching the wind forecast again... ohhh, looks good for tomorrow!
Ellensburg - 25 to 35 with gusts to 45mph! Look for us on the Vantage cam around 6:30pm tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment