Los Barriles - Baja wind report
by Dave
February 22, 2009

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I landed in Cabo about 1pm on the 15th, made it through customs and to the cab by 2pm, arrived in Los Barriles at 3pm, put on my wetsuit and harness and was sailing on a 6.1 by 3:15. I got an hour on the water until it died--but not bad for a first day.

Monday- No wind so I tried out a 29er on the local mountain bike trails.

Tuesday- Morning ride followed by 7.2/6.7/6.2 and a 94 liter board-- about 2 1/2 hours on the water.

Wednesday-- no riding because the wind was blowing by 9am. On the water by 10:30 and sailed 5.7/5.2 and an 86l board- 3+ hours on the water with some major swell running.

Thursday- Blowing by 10am and on the water at 11. 5.2 sail on an 86l board.
Big swell and big chop and 3 more
hours on the water. I'm beat up and tired and will have a Pacifico just as soon as i hit "send". You should all be here.
Spencer-- believe it or not, just before i started typing, a girl came up and asked me if i was "Spencer". Evidently, she and her friend recognized me from Leo and somehow, thought i was you. She lost the bet! Could be the Sailworks thing.

More wind forecast for Friday and back to biking on Saturday before i fly home.

Dave

I got everybody through Thursday on the last report except that I remembered I ended the day on a 4.7 instead of the 5.2

Friday, the wind was blowing early again but I woke up feeling a bit of the "revenge". It actually hit about 10 of us overnight which can bring down the mood just a bit. Wasn't feeling up to an early sail so I napped to recharge and managed to get on the water for an hour on a 5.3 before another nap and no Pacifico's for me on Friday night.

Saturday was forecast as a bike day and my last day in Los Barriles but I was on the water by 10:30 on the 5.8 and the 86l Starboard Kode. After about an hour of working my way upwind to North Beach, I managed to snap a boom but made it to shore. I had a bit of a walk back but got a new boom and a ride on the quad back to the board and back on the water. The wind started to play mind games by backing off and coming back in again so I changed to the 94 Kode and it seemed to make up the difference. I sailed until 1:30p but had to pack and dry things out before my 3:00p taxi back to the airport.

The final count was 6 out of 7 days sailing using a 85-95 liter board and mostly sails in the 5's. Los Barriles is a quick 2 hour flight and 45 minute taxi ride away and I wore a shorty all week. I did luck out and picked the best week of their year in terms of number of days of strong winds strung together. The bike riding suffered due to the good winds but I have been riding here.

Today, I decided to rest and recover.

Attached are some pictures of the venue.

For those who care, the Starboard Kode boards (freestyle/wave) were pretty fun boards and the Neil Pryde Firefly and Alpha sails were OK this year, too. I was not too impressed with the Hellcat. I didn't try the JP's this year and they had a few Tabou boards, too.

Dave