Actually, believe it or not, its not that bad yet, but I think the weather is finally supposed to go 'seasonal' by the end of the week, with the first smathering of snowfall on Thursday.
But, we did score one more decent one at Sandbanks last Friday. I took half the day off and drove myself out to Picton to meet up with Ilan, Pierre and JF Lemay. I extracted them from the allure of the beach and dragged them off to Mac's, despite what appeared to be pretty tiny little waves. Sure enough though, the wind ramped up to a reasonable 30-35kts for the afternoon and we feasted on 3-5ft waves. Not epic in the sense of true epicity (is that a word?), but a blast none the less, and well worth the trip. Mostly head-high rides, but once again, the wave wrapping that happens there just gives it enough twist to get to reasonable side-shore conditions. I think the best wave I saw was Pierre getting about 6-8 nice turns all the way into the wind doldrums near shore. Ilan's wave riding is improving all the time. Ilan is on a solid no-skunk-yet record for Sandbanks, so if he is going to make the trip all the way from Montreal, chalk it down for a guaranteed quality session.
A few photos, care of Ilan...
But alas, it is time to dry out the equipment, pull out the parka's and snow shovels, cuz here comes winter!
4 comments:
Last kick? Snow isn't so bad to sail in (unless it's blowing tiny ice crystals...that hurts.)
One more session (and then one more after that, and then one more...)
Nice. If I want to keep going, I reckon I need to invest in a dry-suit. Do you have one? I'm interested in the opinions on the various manufacturers' offerings out there.
I have a Bare drysuit, as do many of the guys I sail with. I should say that lately Bare's quality seems to be on the decline, and some of the guys have been switching to the O'Neill Assault. I know two guys who own them ("the Wolf"...regularly occuring sailor in my blog) and Mike Burns (the best freestyle sailor on Long Island)...both of them are former Bare owners...and they are happy so far. If I was in the market that's what I'd check out.
There are no perfect gloves, as I'm sure you know. There are plenty of good hoods, as I'm also sure you know. But winter is windy!
Thanks for the info. I have been looking into the Ocean Rodeo Surf Drysuit a bit, since I'm not sure I'm keen on a full bag, like the OR Pyro. Both expensive suits. Maybe the O'Neill is a bit more reasonable... something for me to look into.
However, another very limiting factor for us inlanders is that all our water usually freezes over from roughly January to early April!
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