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Dave Member  Member#: 15 Location: Registered: 29-07-2002 Diary Entries: 126 Mood: Hey Ho |
26th March 2005 Windsurfing: Dahab Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Various Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Hot Sea Temperature: Warm Weather: Sunny Max Speed: Distance Covered: Sarah wrote our diary entry in an email; -------------------------------------------------- Well – where to start… the beginning I suppose… The first morning at Dahab there was the usual ‘which group should we be in’. The beginners were taken off on one side and that left us with a large (make that ‘very large’) group of improvers/intermediates/advanced. So they asked those who could carve gybe to go in the advanced group – about half the group moved to the advanced group. Then they asked those who were concentrating on getting into the harness and footstraps to go into the improvers group – leaving about 3 of us in the intermediates. So they rephrased the advanced question to ‘those that can carve gybe and come out planing’ and that evened things up pretty quickly!! We were lucky that the intermediates got (I think) the best of the instructors – Simon Hurrey – you may have seen an article on him in the latest windsurf magazine. He was there in November when we went and has been in South Africa training through the winter so that he can compete this year. He flew out the same day as us to Dahab and is only staying five weeks before he goes off to compete – so we were definitely lucky to get him. So things were shaping up well – a group of 7 who all wanted to concentrate on carve gybing, a good instructor and the wind was blowing. So off we went into the lagoon with Simon standing by the towers and the idea was just to have a sail up and down, gybing, if possible, near the towers and turning round somehow at the other end. I was on a 4.7m sail and a triple X 125 and was a bit over-powered. Dave was on a 5.0m and also a bit overpowered. I guess it was blowing a force 6. But, you know how it is – it’s a long way back to the beach to change down and you are never certain whether if you change down you will be under-powered. So, we stuck at it – first time since November. Dave has had problems with his knee all winter which still is not right. He had been building up what he could do with it at the gym over the last couple of months as before Christmas he couldn’t even walk. So it was a pretty radical first sail after a 6 month lay-off. Dave was concentrating on whether his knee was OK and trying lots of waterstarts to see whether he still could do them as we both only learnt them out in Dahab last November. He did loads of waterstarts and his knee was holding up well so he was really pleased. I also had a good session – blasting and going into my gybes and coming out dry – but only floating out not planing. I managed a few waterstarts too – so all in all I was delighted. The rest of the group all seemed to be having a good time too. We stayed out a couple of hours and then all headed back in for lunch. So there we all were, ready to get out there and practise gybing – and the wind ... dropped. I mean it really dropped – no chance of planing at all. So we took small sails and bimbled about. Tuesday morning we all got up – full of anticipation – but still very light winds – so we were all out practising heli-tacks and light wind gybes with tips from Simon. A lot of radical dismounts from the heli-tacks!! But we were all enjoying being out on the water in the sunshine. The water was quite warm but Dave and I were wearing summer wetsuits – just to give some protection to the shins – with all the unplanned dismounts. Wednesday – no tuition – and still no wind. So our group all went out and practised heli-tacks mostly. We were all still struggling to make them reliably even though the winds were very light. Thursday – would you believe it – light winds again, a little bit more than the previous two days but still light – and this time on shore – a complete switch round and bringing quite a bit of swell. Simon took us out – to practise, would you believe, heli-tacks! But this time he was able to give us all a few tips and we all improved loads and actually started to understand how the move is supposed to work instead of just fluking it. In fact considering the lumpy water and slightly stronger winds – I think we were all doing well. It was a case of heli-tack after heli-tack after heli-tack until I got to the point where I couldn’t remember how to do a normal tack. So a really good session. In the afternoon the wind picked up a bit and we all took out big sails – but could not get going – just not enough wind and a bit too much swell. (Not typical Dahab conditions at all.) Friday morning dawned and if anything there was less wind than the rest of the week. I couldn’t face another freestyle session and instead sat on the beach sewing. About half our group went out – Dave included – but that was the first day that we had not all gone out. One of the chaps in our group, Martin, managed to hurt his back – apparently a trapped nerve. He did not turn up for dinner nor in the bar afterwards – as he could not get off his bed. He sent a message via his wife saying that knowing his luck it would be windy the next day. And, boy, was he right. We got up and went to breakfast and the wind was already blowing. By the time we got to the beach it was getting stronger and stronger. We had a bit of a chat on the simulator about strong wind stance - not just normal stance stuff – but how to cope with the really strong winds, how to water start into the straps – that sort of thing. By this time I had decided that the wind was really too strong for me. I decided I would wait a while to see if it dropped off a bit and Dave thought that seemed like a reasonable idea once we had watched a few of the others getting blown about on the way out to the lagoon. Just before lunchtime we decided that it looked a bit better as people seemed to be doing better and the rescue boats were bringing fewer people back. The boats had been doing a constant ferry service throughout the morning. So off we went – I was on a 3.7 – yes a 3.7. I had one completely out of control reach and landed on the point of the spit. I decided I would walk up to the towers. Meanwhile Dave had a few reaches back and forth on a 4.5 and decided that working his way up into the lagoon was not really on the cards so just blasted back and forth in front of the beach. When I got to the towers the wind was so strong that I decided I shouldn’t even try sailing back so walked back along the beach. By the time I got back Dave was on the beach looking for me through the Club Dahab binoculars. The wind dropped a little in the afternoon so we went out again – Dave on a 4m and me on a 3.7 again. It was a lot better and we went up into the lagoon and had some good reaches – still too powered up to gybe really – I tried a few but couldn’t control the power. Still a lot better than the morning when we had both got blown away. Saturday evening was the fancy dress BBQ and we all had a good time. Martin managed to walk down to the bar and join us all – but was really struggling with the pain in his back. There was no dancing – just eating and drinking – oh and a video of the week – which we did not feature in as we had not made it up to the lagoon on the Saturday morning. We all decided we were so tired we would not stay up late – but it was 1 o’clock before we knew it – I don’t know how that happens. So, Sunday morning, we packed up all our stuff and went down to the beach to find it was just as windy as Saturday morning. So – wiser now – I took a 3.2 and Dave a 3.7 – yes that’s right! We got up into the lagoon and were fully powered up – waterstarting and blasting back and forth. I could manage to get round my gybes but not as well as I had done on the Monday morning – just getting blown in at the end. Then the wind started to pick up (force 8 I would guess at) and waterstarting even with the tiny sails became much more difficult as we were just getting picked up and blown round the front. At this point Dave suggested that we should really think about heading back as we had to sail off the wind to get back to Club Dahab and that was going to mean even more power and speed than the upwind reaches we were doing in the lagoon. So, off we set and both crashed and ended up back by the towers. We then considered walking back along the beach but thought we would give it one more go. So, we did and both managed to make the beach by the Swiss Inn – upwind of Club Dahab – but we were happy to settle for that. So that was the end of the week. Windwise – a great start, which quickly tailed off disappointingly and then came back with a vengeance to finish off the week. I don’t think it was made any better by the instructors telling us when we arrived that it had been constantly windy for four weeks – we all just expected the wind to stay like it was on Monday. Ah well, I suppose that is the nature of windsurfing. Socially – a good week – a nice bunch of people and our group particularly was friendly and good fun. Oh, and the hotel – I haven’t said anything about that. The Swiss Inn was definitely worth the money – much nicer room, better food, nice pool, lovely gardens. So all in all – a good holiday – but not much improvement in our gybing – OK no improvement in our gybing. We were both pleased that we could still waterstart and managed to improve on those during the week – and chuffed to bits about our heli-tacks (although who knows whether we will still be able to do them the next time we go out). |
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