Now normally I coincide my trip with the PWA Pozo event safe in the knowledge that its aways windy in early July and in my 8 trips over the last 8 years I've not missed a single day, with the biggest sail I've had to use being a 6.5 ---- until this year! I knew things were going pear shaped about a week before when the forecast started to show some fairly light winds in the few days leading up to the trip, phew I thought if the Calima (name for the southerly wind that pushes up against the trades) kicks in a few days before our trip there'll be a possibility of day or two of lighter winds at the beginning of the trip and then the trades will settle in again won't they??
The calima winds never last more than 3-4 days never never never! Well this year it did, for the first time since windsurfing sails graced the beach of El Medano. The first few days were tolerable with some SUPping and light wind trickery but after 2-3days of those sorts shenanigans nerves began to get frayed. The forecast seemed to be goodish from the Wednesday onwards, nothing epic but nevertheless doable but as Wednesday arrived the promised wind failed to materialise but the Thursday was looking ok, nothing epic but doable.
Sure enough Thursday arrived and you've guess it the wind failed to materialise so Jas and I made the mistake of heading off to the Siam water park ( you might have seen the vid of Dany Bruch towing into the wave in the wave pool www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv_pYIsGuWM ) Mistake? I hear you ask, surely splashing around for the day in Europe's biggest mistake can't be all bad, well the park wasn't bad the rides were great, some of them verging on mental in fact but the 'mistake' bit was again due to Mother Nature & her showing who's boss. I mentioned the Calima wind earlier, the one that pushes up from the south against the trades and in effect cancels them out, well Siam park is just around the corner from El Medano and just like when you walk down a city street on a windy day and you turn a corner and suddenly you get blasted by the wind coming from the other direction well the same thing happened to us, sure enough on Costa del Concrete the Calima was cranking.
Would have been plenty windy enough for a 5.0 but with living in Guernsey and with that the hassle of transporting kit we were hiring from the TWS so no kit! We were standing on the top of a hill in Siam park waiting for a ride down the Mekong river ride and the faces of everyone queuing painted a picture of thrills and fun mixed with a little fear - expect of Jas and I who were seriously pissed off by this point (made even worse when I heard someone say 'well I've never known it so windy over here!') so we bailed.
The next day the forecast was tolerable and the outlook getting even better so Jas and I decided to hang on for an extra day and fork out the best park of another £200 in flight changes etc. We even managed to get in on some wave kit on the Friday, I tried out the new 85l Tabou tri fin with 5.3. Nice board I thought! These pics are from that one day. I've chosen not to publish the pics of me being washed up on the rocks or breaking my mast for obvious reasons!
The next day, the extra day, was again tolerable but not worth the extra dosh :-( . Will I be going again? Oh yes, I'll be back, you've only got to look at the footage from the very same beach earlier this month of the PWA to see that it can be a fun spot!
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