Ankle-Day: A new windsurfing holiday celebrated March 12th

March 12, 2010 "ANKLE DAY, NZ"

Strong winds from the SE required a 4.1 m^2 sail today. More remnants of a cyclone that is clobbering Fiji. I had to borrow the small sail from Mike Giselle as my 4.1 sail needs to be modified at the head to fit my mast. Luckily we had some redundancy in the combined quivers. Pete, Rachel and "Baby-A" arrived this morning from Boston and Pete caught some nice photos of Mike, Rudy, and "Ace", now AKA'd as "Ankle-Ace" after a day-ending injury following a bad landing off a wave :(

Turns out the X-ray facilities on the island are only open 3-days / week, so after a quick visit to the local emergency care the swelling foot and I took the ferry and a cab to the Auckland Hospital ER. After a couple X-rays, followed by a load-bearing X-ray, then finally a CT Scan, it looked like there were no broken bones, subluxation, or dislocation. The weight-bearing X-ray suggested possible spreading of the 1st and 2nd metatarsals indicative of a Lisfranc injury that requires surgery, hence the desire for a CT scan. So from 6pm to 2am I was back and forth from waiting room to radiology 3 times, then finally "plastered" (the term for placing a plaster cast on the foot) and put in a bed to meet with the orthopaedic specialist in the morning, who confirmed that I could be released.

Windsurfers BBQ finally materialized on Saturday March 6th. A great time with Rudy, Marc, Mike, and Ole, and two more kids (Brin and Alex, I think)

The next day didn't follow through with enough wind, but I gave it a go at Woodside Bay, but was absolutely unable to get out of the bay into the channel on the Kombat and 5.4 (I forgot the mast for the 6.0 and the 6.4 is still ripped). Fabio showed up and sailed a little on an 8.0, but said it was sub-planning at times in the channel and only stayed out 45 min or so. He missed the party due to a wedding on the mainland--so we'll have to hold another bbq soon!

Grant due at 1pm--windsurfing by 3pm!

A bit of a busy week after being in Dunedin the previous, so not much time to finish an NSF proposal due March 3rd at 5pm MST. Of course I took it to 12:56pm NZT on March 4 to make the deadline with 6 min to spare. Why do I do this every time?? Not a bad proposal, but some obvious spelling errors and the bibliography was just a mess. Next round for this RFA is August. It was especially hard to work on this while the wind just kept building all day! Looking off the deck toward Blackpool during the morning revealed many whitecaps and one ginormous sailboat off the point. Multimillion-dollar vessel not bothering to seek shelter from the 20 to 30 knot winds. But also not bothering to raise the sails! Quite the site to see on the edge of the island this morning.

Luckily it was still cranking at 3pm when I was ready to get in the water at Surfdale. 4.7, Kombat, perfect. Rudy showed up on the water, and I didn't recognize him since I haven't seen him in the water since the Sting-Ray incident. Jenn and kids walked along the Esplenade to go to guitar lesson at 4:30pm, so they borrowed the car while I kept going. Nik caught a video around the "Ray" rock:

Ex-Tropical Storm Conditions Prove Too Good

"Long range weather maps show Cyclone Rene will head towards New Zealand, arriving at the end of the working week.

The storm currently battering Tonga is currently rated as a category four - just one less than the highest rating.

WeatherWatch head analyst Philip Duncan says at this stage it poses no threat to New Zealand.

He believes the Cyclone will only brush us with cloud and perhaps strong south to south east winds.'

On Thursday Feb 18 the Ex-Cyclone still had some kick and was 30 gusting to 40 at Surfdale. It was downright intimidating. I texted Marc and he was stuck on the mainland working. VHF was reporting 50 kts in the outer Channel. The 4.1 sail was put to use, and doesn't quite fit the mast :( So it was a bit squirrely. The AHD proved even squirrelier with the gusts and required too quick of a transition from out of harness and straps to fully powered up that it was just burdensome. So the Kombat proved to be the better board, but it was still just a major workout and day to be careful not to have an ugly crash. So I only completed one jibe, most of the time just opting to dismount and rest a few on the edges. It was incredible just trying to get the board and sail out of the water. I was done by noon. Later in the day I saw a sail (Mike G from Canada) going for it alone. Not sure where the rest of the crowd was!