Light wind sail of Sth Esplanade Bongaree this morning
Plenty of fun 7m super freak sail and f2 lightening. Sailing the flats on the sandbanks. Managed a few light wind water starts Practiced railing board up. Just magic
Pretending I'm on holidays. Burger by the jetty to chill out.
Bringing colour to windsurfing 
Cheers Jeff
Only 5-10kn ENE conditions today and low afternoon tides so Jeff and myself sailed from South Esplanade on big boards with little sails. I was on the big BIC and Jeff was on the big RIO, perfect boards for perfect fun sailing over onto the weed banks. Usual Bribie Passage wind coming at us from everywhere, but what a pleasant afternoon for sailing just for the fun of it. I had chores to do so had to take off, but got a message from Jeff to say he'd sniffed out Scoopy's and was having an ice cream. They say we regress back to being children as we get older ........... they could be right.
Where tomorrow fellas, I have a day needing to get wet and the tides are not that great, thinking of heading to Golden Pond unless you give me a plan.
PS, bending the rules I am sure, but my "1998 Mistral Explosion - 288 cm, 120 litres" is still a great board and is going for 99 cents tomorrow morning unless it is saved for a good local guy with change in the ashtray. Still flies, just looks like I do. 29 knots once on the lake.
Peter
I've got no plan for tomorrow yet PWB but either Adam or myself will post up here when we figure out what's going on, I think Jeff is back at work tomorrow. Looks like breeze from lunchtime onwards. Jeff and Adam are sailing at Turner's Camp at 2pm today but i've got chores to do this arvo so just had a lunchtime blast for an hour and a half at Philip Street on the last of the tide. 10-15 today so was using my favourite 8.5m sea breeze sail and the Magic Ride, plenty of jelly fish going bump underneath.
Adam and myself are going to sail at Turner's Camp sometime from 2pm onwards if anyone's keen.
Select to expand quotePaddles B'mere said..
Adam and myself are going to sail at Turner's Camp sometime from 2pm onwards if anyone's keen.
Jealous 
Got to go to work today
The flat water a low tide yesterday was something really special. 
Enjoy
I went soft and did Golden Pond, reasonable 12-14 knot seabreeze from about 11 till 3. No jelly but plenty weed on the fin.
Very low tide sailing at Turner's yesterday arvo with Brad and Adam with the flattest water I've ever experienced in the passage, it wasn't even chopped up down near Spinnaker's. Best of all, the really low tide must have sucked all those little blue b@st@rds down past Bongaree so it was jelly free. Adam and myself are really suss on bullies on these low tides and last light conditions in the big basin out the front of Ningi Creek so we just make sure we don't fall in too much. Plenty of wind to start with had me thinking of using a 6.1 because Adam reckoned his 7 was overpowered, but I settled on a 7 because Adam shamed me into matching his sail size. It worked out well because the wind started to drop and get real gusty so I buzzed around in the gusts on the Magic giving Adam and Brad the sh!ts whilst they slogged it out in the holes. Bribie can flukey as, and you've gotta watch for the gusts coming from Pac Harbour and have a plan when it's like this. It was hard work off and on the plane and in and out of the straps constantly moving and shifting weight at times and I felt it last night.
Great way to spend an afternoon.
Quite a few big boils in the flat water late as the wind started to drop. Didn't get to see what they were until right at the end. Large Turtle came up for a breath about 3m from me. Very happy for both of us that we didn't find one another earlier while the breeze was stronger.
No ****s given or received Paddles, just happy to be on the water. Hopefully that made up for your skunking at Sandstone Saturday morning .
One day I will crack it for which board to use. Would have been ideal for the JP SLW, but looked like being solid for a while when I rigged up. Too frikkin far to walk to the car at low tide to change.
See you next time.
Yeah, it made up for it. I had a shocker on saturday. Looking forwards to catching up with you for a few more late afternoon sails through summer.
Janet and I are organizing things so we can get to Sandstone on Monday - a bit of a drama but we need to get back out on those boards again! Been too long! Monday looks great with good wind and a middle of day tide. I'm a bit scared as it's been so long and my shoulder is still pretty sore, and I'm not sure how it will go wrestling the boom etc. Janet's scared because her last sailing session ended badly - washed under the jetty at Golden Beach, damaging a brand new sail. Let's hope it's a good day.
Just to prove we got there, a couple of photos of Janet at Sandstone Point today. After work delays we got there around 11:30am and the wind was good - but it faded a lot mid-arvo. After a long break from sailing we feel like we're back at the beginner school again. Mark turned up having been sailing with John at Bongaree earlier until the wind went very east. Adam turned up to chat and watch too. And Brad arrived just as we were packing up, to sail the last of the tide. Another nice guy arrived late in the arvo too. Not a bad day. Janet hates the new Naish GT and wants me to let her get back on the Metal Rock but I'm gently persuading her to persevere. I love my GT. By mid arvo the wind had dropped enough that I gave her my 6.6m rig and took her 5.7 back in, and I couldn't be bothered rigging up again so I sat the last bit out. Janet always ends up spending about twice as much time on the water as me. Shoulder is pretty sore now but it coped reasonably well.
I'm back, a seven day cruise around tassie isn't going to upset my plans for a sailing Christmas, no, wait, I have to install the new spa and there's the family Christmas Day, and Janine needs a new car, bloody hell it looks like early Jan before I can try my new boards and sails... bugger...
Nah she says she doesn't hate it actually. Having such little sailing for so long now she feels like there's so much to try to learn that she'd like to spend some time back on the familiar Metal Rock just to get confidence and basic skills back.
Thinking of heading to Turners tomorrow arvo, if I can get away from work on time, and if it isn't going to storm.
Anyone heading out?
It looks good for Sandstone Point Thursday arvo, and the tide time looks perfect (4pm) so if we can get the work done early we're planning to get there early arvo to try to get on top of this windsurfing thing again!
Adam has been sticking his fingers where they shouldn't be and Brad was suss on the storm so I snuck down the front for a quick solo session on the big windsup with 24000 little blue friends. 10-12 knot conditions so used the 6.1m wave sail. Managed to tack my way up towards Bribie using the centreboard into the sea and then just the rear fins going with it and then gybed my way home downwind as the wind dropped out in front of the storm. Had a couple of spare thruster side fins in the car so I'm trying the big girl with them on as well as the centre fin and it seems to surf along the little bay swells nicer. Great fun board, sailing because you can!
Heading down to sandstone for a sail if anybody else is keen. John and me will be there about 2.
A very windy Sandstone Point this afternoon. Adam was there early with Andrew and Janet then I turned up followed by The Pope and Brad was a latecomer showing up just as we were packing up. Solid 20kn plus conditions so I rigged a 5.5, Adam stuck with his 6.4 and the Pope did one run with a 6.4 and came straight in to drop to a 5.5. Andrew and Janet were frantically dropping sizes too and ended up using a 4.7 and a 5. Good fun sailing and we all stuck to the speedway track straight out from the beach as it was looking pretty wild out on the weed banks past the reef patches. Bad news for the afternoon was Andrew being carted away in an ambulance after smacking his ribs real hard, not a great way to start christmas as he'll be very sore for a while I reckon. Looks like onshore conditions for a week now so hopefully a bit of sailing to be had.
The pain was indescribable but at the moment the accumulated doses of morphine ( repeated), fentanyl, methoxyflurane, endone and a NSAID I haven't heard of before have transported me to a transcendental state of near euphoria. The irony of the situation is almost funny ... quitting dirt biking due to the injuries and then breaking 5 ribs out windsurfing! The CT scan showed I have broken 5 ribs in my mid back and a minor haemo and pneumothorax with lung confusion. The doc said they see this degree of rib breakage in bad car accidents. I really have become genuinely accident prone. They have admitted me and I'm staying in at least till tomorrow. . They say I have to be capable of breathing deeply and mobile before I can go home. We are very lucky to live in a country with such a great medical system.
P. S. a very big thank you to Brad, Adam, John and John for helping Janet to get the gear all unrigged and packed up while I sat shivering in ridiculous discomfort and pain. . Poor Brad in particular arrived late in the day busting to get out for a fix but devoted himself to helping out instead. Thanks mate, much appreciated.
Janet here. I just spent about 15 minutes typing a post to update everyone, only to post it and discover Andrew had simultaneously already posted something...from the hospital.
But to add my thanks to everyone - it was more than "helping Janet unrig" because you guys dragged Andrew's rig ashore, then unrigged and packed away everything so I could attend to the wounded warrior. Would have been in a bad way without you!It's just as well Sandstone is such a forgiving site as Andrew would have been in much more trouble if he hadn't been able to touch the bottom, and slowly start walking his rig to shore before I realized this wasn't just another crash and went over to investigate. He also has a tiny haemo/pneumothorax (blood and air in the chest cavity due to rib damaging lung tissue) but not a serious problem.
Thanks to John and Adam for their advice on how to manage the new vs. old boards - I finally started to get the hang of my new Naish board and was having a blast in the latter part of the afternoon (despite still being overpowered on the 4.7). We have a 4.0 but left that at home because "we would never need THAT today!" (typical)...and we had nothing between a 5.0 (not enough) and a 5.8 (too much) for Andrew. But we probably won't be going out any time soon sadly :-( Might be time for some life jackets and helmets?!
Far out Andrew, we're going to have to buy you one of those sumo suits or maybe a wettie made from 30mm neoprene the way you're knocking yourself up. Hopefully you'll mend up and be back on the water soon.
Ouch!!
Yep, you looked to be not well, confirmed when you weren't able to laugh at my comment about Janet looking for the green needle in the van.
Hope you are out for Christmas and best wishes for a speedy recovery.
I had a good, if lonely session after everyone including ambulance departed.
I was a bit spooked by your injury and took it very easy. Wore my vest as always, as it does provide a bit of rib protection and even wore my helmet.
Luckily there was no one there to laugh at me.
7.0 was a good choice in the end John, it dropped steadily until I got out just before dark.
