Clearing Winds
January 15th, 2006
At this time, 9:30 a.m., winds are blasting down the Santa Barbara channel at 25 to 30 knots from the WNW. Some of this air is beginning to filter into the SoCal beaches: WSW at 10 at Leo. WNW at 8 at Cabrillo and WNW at 4 at Seal. The Jack's cards see slowly building W to NW pressure over the beaches south of LAX during the next two hours. With any luck we'll see a westerly tilt before noon that will bring 20 knots in to Seal and just offshore Cabrillo. If the NW direction holds it's yucky inner Harbor time: Inside Cabrillo and Belmont. Air temp is about 53 degrees and there's a waist high swell.
From here on in yer on yer own. The Jack's packing his shit.
JACK of HEARTS
THAT'S GREAT, JUST LIKE TODAY...WE HAVE CHAT AND CHAT AND AS I DRIVE TO SEAL OUR CHAT TURNED OUT TO BE CHANT AND THAT TURNED OUT TO BRING SOME GOOD BREEZE...
NOW SERIOUSLY, IF YOU GUYS NEED NOTICE (ESPECIALLY IN WINTER) YOU BETTER GET YOUR REAR IN YOUR CAR AND GET READY FOR THE MOMENT NOTICE (AND IF YOU OWN A NORTH SAIL START RIGGING A DAY BEFORE) OTHERWISE YOU MISSED IT....
GABOR
What that kook Gabor is trying to say is.....Today rocked!....20 knot W/WNW jet touched down on the south coast beaches right around 2...pulled back slightly than came in strong at 3:15 till almost dark. Yes yes yes I know most of the windtalkers except Belmont show wind in the mid-teens....but if you sail these beaches you know that on WNW that means this is the inside LULL...the outside is equal to or greater than the gust....which was 20 plus at Seal from 3 to after 5.
The Jack witnessed the Hero/Nerd Plasma Barrier Boys rigging 11 meters......why is quite questionable.....but they went out , they sailed, and they survived......and Gabor hung in there until the wind turned shifty and fluky and 11 meters almost seemed sensible. Almost.
Crystal clear gorgeous day with blue skies, clean water and, until the sun started to set, reasonably termperate conditions. Offshore tilt of the wind provided billiard table smooth inside jibes....until a swell came in and was groomed by that offshore wind into a perfect four foot face. Oh yes, and there was a postcard view of the snow on the San Gabriels from the outside. Definitely the best January day The Jack has seen in years.
J of H
Oh, man.....
I shouldn't even tell you guys this....
I totally missed it.
Sitting at the computer Photoshopping a picture of my friend's dog and keeping an eye on iWindsurf, waiting for it to start. About 1:00 I notice it's starting to get good.
"No hurry" I say to Debi, "According to the National Weather Service it's going to blow all afternoon and get stronger towards evening".
I'll wait for you to stop laughing at my foolishness.
So I casually load a few things into the van. "It's gonna blow pretty good, so I'll just bring my 88 liter wave board and 3 of my smaller sails, nothing bigger than 6.0". Just to be safe I toss in the 4.7 as well.
Done laughing yet?
Off we go, Debi armed with the camera to capture me ripping the incredible conditions that are predicted by our fine Weather Service. We get to C-Street at 2:00 sharp (stop here and look at the chart for C-St.) The SECOND we pull up it drops from 18 (actually 20+ on the water) to 16. A local assures me it's just a "dip" and will ramp right back up in a minute.
Sure it will. I decide to wait for the next page, so Debi takes the dog for a short walk while I talk with this local guy, who is so full of bulls**t it's positively amazing. Of course, this is where my comics come from, so I stay for two more pages, listening to Mr. Informative and watching the wind drop like a Montana thermometer in January.
Did I mention that Leo Carrillo is paging at 21 for an hour? Debi gets back, we hop in the van and head south at 80mph, hoping to catch some of that 21.
I'll pause while you catch your breath. Do I even need to tell the rest of the tale? Yes, to purge myself.
So we get as far as County Line Beach, 3 miles short of Leo, and there's a bunch of guys out ripping. "Hey!" I say, "I'll stop here, parking's better, and there's a sand launch." We stop, I hop out and see Steve Bard standing right below me. "How is it?" I shout. "Great!" he replies, "Rig a 5.5". Now Steve's a big guy like me, so I consider a moment before deciding to go with the 6.0, just to be sure. I drag all the stuff out, struggle into my full suit & booties, and hop down the little cliff there to rig. While I'm rigging, I notice that everyone's coming in, but in my current state of self-delusion I tell myself they're just all tired. I also notice that all the sand you walk out on has been scrubbed away by all the recent swells, exposing the underlying rock. Oh well, no biggie.
Except the rocks are unbelievably slippery, and there's a 5 knot lateral current. After a bit of struggling and thrashing, I finally hop up, stick my front foot in the strap -- and the wind dies. Really, right at that moment. Well, maybe not dies completely, but drops to just under "able to waterstart with a 6.0 when you weigh 205". So I spend the next 10 minutes or so drifting south with the current and floundering around trying to keep my s**t together and get up.
Not a chance.
So I let myself wash to shore, drag my gear back up the 200 yards I had drifted down and de-rig.
Wait, there's more!
We're supposed to go back up to Ventura to have dinner with my parents around 5:00. It's now about 4:15, so our timing's perfect -- except there's been a giant accident on P.C.H., there's a million emergency vehicles blocking the entire highway, and they're landing helicopters to pick up casualties. So we have to turn around and go back to Kanan Canyon, about 10 miles the wrong way, and take it through the mountains to get back to the 101. We finally arrive at my parents house at 6:00, an hour late.
So my question is: Does it count as windsurfing if you have one foot in the strap for 5 seconds?
--Spennie
