Windsurfing Magazine

jdouglass
2010-09-08 17:06:33 | 635 views | 5 Comments

My two-year marine biology research fellowship in Florida expired last week, so with some sighs and groans (but a bit of excitement, as well) I left the tropical paradise of Fort Pierce to start another research job in Boston, Massachusetts.

Yep, 24 hours driving a 16-foot Penske truck with my windsurf-loaded minivan towed behind it, broken up by an overnight at my sister’s house in Cary, North Carolina, and another at a La Quinta hotel in Stamford Connecticut, and I arrived at the stoop of my new home: 42 W. Baltimore St., Lynn, MA. The place is smaller than where I lived in Florida, and I had a heck of a time fitting in my fabulous windsurfing board rack. The neighbors probably thought I was nuts, sawing the excess length off the 2×4s of the rack in the middle of the shared hallway at 9 p.m., shirtless, stinky with sweat, and with the zipper busted off my shorts from where I tried to support the corner of a dresser with my johnson while shlepping it out of the truck. Anyway, right now I’m sitting in the computer lab at Northeastern University’s Marine Science Center in Nahant, decompressing after a busy day of just-moved-to-a-new-place type work tasks and errands. Ahh.

My last week in Florida was a good “last blast” in terms of windsurfing, with a couple days of big waves and decent onshore winds related to Hurricane Earl. On the very last water sports day, both the wind and the waves were nice and there were actually 5 windsurfers at the Fort Pierce South Jetty. Woo hoo! I took a few pictures from that day, presented in the slideshow below. One of the windsurfers was John Campbell, aka “floridawavesailor”, who is a very good rider. He does lots of backwinded moves, like, carving 360s.

The video below is from an earlier day in the week, when the waves were good but the wind was not quite strong enough for the shortboard and 6.8 msq sail I was using. The session was saved by the “gorge effect” — the fact that the current and the wind were going in opposite directions in Fort Pierce Inlet, which increased the apparent wind speed and the steepness of the waves enough to get planing and have a good time. The song in the video is one that my friend Emily Westermeier sings. I think it’s good but she’s not so sure, so if you like it leave a nice comment or something.

Windsurfing, Special Soundtrack from James Douglass on Vimeo.

It’s still plenty warm enough to windsurf here in MA, so I hope to have some adventure stories and video to share from here, soon.