Photos taken by Bartek (The official OTC photographer) his facebook page is here

and he can be found at the OTC Centre El Medano 

 

 

Photos of Richard

Photos of Richard were taken By Bartek (The official OTC photographer) his facebook page is here

and he can be found at the OTC Centre El Medano

 Photo taken By Nikki Attree

 Photo taken By Nikki Attree

Monday 11th of June

Another excellent day here. I started well powered on 4.2m for a jump session in the south bay. Jumping has never been my thing really, but when there is that much wind it is fun to be up there with the wind under the board keeping you floating in the air, using the rig as a wing.

Soon well powered became over-powered and the small waves turned into nasty low tide chop, so I took a rest, had some lunch, and rigged the 3.7m. Back out again and straight up to the harbour wall. The wind was a bit iffy - some very strong gusts (40 knots ?) and then lulls, but the waves got better and better. Again, it's not my favourite wind strength to be riding waves but the tiny sail does feel very nice once you are on one that's big enough to block the actual wind and leave you running on apparent wind.

Nikki managed to get one pic of me (I didn't actually know she was there in fact) ...

This head high wave was about average size - a few of the set waves got up to about logo high, but it was probably big enough to trigger my 'play it safe' button (don't actually remember the top turn). I'm working on trying to do what I can do on small (< head high) waves on the big ones (logo). I'm gradually losing my fear of doing that and pushing a bit harder each time, and also actively going searching for the biggest wave of a set.

Here in this pic of my bottom turn I can see how I haven't really committed as hard as I do on smaller waves. The back hand should be a lot further down the boom, sheeted in harder, leaning further forward, ready to open the sail and carve harder to come back at the lip more vertical.

In my defence, I'd just say that the waves at the wall are apparently fairly technical to ride. I have this on good authority from better wave-sailors than me, who are more used to cross or cross-off conditions.

Photos of Nikki Windsurfing saturday June 9th

The following photos were taken by Photographer Bartek Jankowski who is spending the summer in El Medano - Here's a link to his facebook page if you would like to contact him bartoszjankowski@poczta.fm

and here's one of Richard, after he took the 4.2 off her and and got to use her slinky new boom (the 'Slim'). By then it had got seriously windy, but I couldn't be arsed to change again to the 3.7m, so it was jump-city survival stuff ...

Photo taken at La Pelada Beach, El Medano this morning. A gust of 49 knots was recorded when I was taking pics, that's force 10, wild or what !

Surf Dog

After a week with no wind (so lots of biking for me), normal service was resumed this week with plenty. Three days on wave kit using everything from 3.7 to 5.2, and some very nice waves at times - although mainly when I was going out through them.

Here's a pic of our pooch Gizmo chekin out de action. You can see how windy it is by the way his fur is blowing in his eyes:

Windy Christmas and New Year

First of all, belated seasonal greetings from Snr Gizmo ...

and what festive season we've had here ! The wind has been blowing non stop for the past couple of months just like it does in the summer, and we've been windsurfing pretty much every day including X-mas and New Year. Here's a snapshot of how the forecast looked - as I say this is how it normally looks in July or August:

After a good couple of hours on the water on Christmas day we drove up to St Cruz to have a wonderful x-mas dinner with our friends Anna, Arturo and Danny and then on Boxing day we drove out over the Anaga mountains to Taganana at the far end of the island. There's a real 'end-of-the-road' feel to the beach there and even though the swell was quite small, there were still clean overhead waves and plenty of surfers. Nikki shot a short video clip on our titchy little camera:




We had lunch in an end-of-the-road-surf-style restaurant on the beach: fantastic seafood and a glass of vino contribute to a smiling Nikki ...

Finally the last couple of days the wind has gradually been turning off, the waves have disappeared and we look like getting some flat calm days. So, time to get the bike out again - it's still dirty from the last ride, more than six week ago !

Just before the wind took a rest a friend visited el Medano with his camera and took some pics of me from the harbour wall. Not very exciting conditions - tiny waves and moderate wind ... I was using my 100 litre WitchCraft Chakra board and my 5.7m Tushingham Rock sail, but at least everything is colour co-ordinated :-)

and to finish, here's a rare pic of the two of us ...