Windsurfing Camp

Windsurfing - or "sailing" as it is referred to around here - is a requirement in the Gorge. The Columbia River is one of the great sailing destinations in the United States, and many of the people who live here moved here for the sailing. In fact, our company is located here because the founder was a windsurfer. So I guess you could say that windsurfing even brought us here, if indirectly.

We learned to snowboard this past winter, so we decided that this was the summer when we learned windsurfing.

Rather than try to learn on our own, we decided to go all out and sign up for a week-long windsurfing camp. ABK Board Sports offered 5-day and 3-day camps in a variety of locations, and we opted for the former. Our original plan was to combine the windsurfing camp with a trip to some exotic place - Southern California, The Caribbean, or someplace like that.

Then we bought a house.

So with much less discretionary money than we had before, we determined that we didn't need to go anywhere at all. After all, isn't the Gorge one of the best windsurfing locations in the country? We used some of the money we saved on travelling to buy ourselves wetsuits, made locally by ProMotion Wetsuits.

The class was Monday through Friday from 9:30am-6pm with a two-hour break for lunch, with Wednesday a half-day (of rest!) Since we had never sailed before, we were starting from scratch; they taught us the basics, from the proper "Number 7" position to uphauling, beach starting, tack, fast tack, water starting, and the pivot jibe. Over the course of the week we were at least able to try each of those techniques, even if we weren't able to execute some of the more advanced ones, such as the pivot jibe.

The wind was varied throughout the week: a good light to moderate wind on Monday; extreme winds on Wednesday; and zero wind on Friday, which ended up being a "here's how to rig the gear" day. We would have liked one more good wind day at the end to solidify some of the skills we were just starting to grasp. I guess we can now better appreciate the phrase "praying for wind."

These photos, taken on day 2, show the 7 position, so named because of the shape that the arms and body are supposed to make. We had plans to take photos on the last day, to show the progress we had made; but standing on a board in the middle of a glassy lake just didn't make for a good photo. I managed to pick up water-starting this week with about a 25% success rate, which made me pretty happy.





Aside from a fat, sore lip I have as a result of another sailer not paying enough attention to where their sail would flip, we had a great time. And since we actually live here - unlike every other person in our class - we can practice anytime we like!

- Mike (& Corinne)