howdy!
its been a while since I've written, its been a while since I've
sailed - especially after a couple of less than graceful bay area
sesh's - one "taste of the bay" session had me dragging my defeated
mind/body/gear slowly out of waste deep Coyote bay muck. To help with
the healing process I saved my season opener this year for our July
4th Maui trip. Maui never disappoints, but this year's re****t reads
waaay to short due to some strange for July weather system. We only
had 3 out of 8 Kanaha sailing days - with one of those days presenting
nasty shorepound, much like the big panhandle storm stuff I've seen in
Florida. After 2 hours of unsuccessful attempts to get thru the inside
gusty shorepound I gave up, defeated and sad. I walked my sail to the
car and as I hung my harness on the tree to dry I thought, you know
maybe this s****t just aint' for me, I gave it my best shot but I still
suck. Hmmm. I walked back to the beach to get my board, was watching
the sailors when a woman approached me and started talking. Her name
was Lori, she'd just arrived on the island from MI and was jonesing
bad for Maui's warm waters and Kanaha's "friendly waves" but had to
go pick up a delayed friend at the air****t. Her stoke was so strong
that soon she had me forgetting about my bad day, and about all my bad
days last year in SF, she made me forget that I've been sailing 3.5
years now and still can't do this and that, and told me how long it
took her to do this and that, and how the 10 minutes of killer sailing
time you get in a session eventually turns into 20 minutes and then 60
minutes, etc. We laughed about thick ass wetsuits and we bonded over
our failures and successes on the water! Suddenly I was feeling very
good, I was thinking about getting back on the water and sailing- I
could not wait to get back out there again the next day---thanks to my
Kanaha Angel. Happy to say the next day turned out to be perfect-
winds averaging 25 with gusts to 30 mph and I felt great! I downsized
my board size, was nailing my water starts and staying upwind, made it
out to the deep blue water on the outside and worked with my BF on
posture / stance improvements. Thanks to my Kanaha Angel for sharing
the stoke and reminding that we've got a lifetime to learn and the
journey is the fun part!
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