Deep Hole, Windsurfed, WSW 18-32, 5.2,4.2/ RWind85, others

Deep Hole, 12/17/06, unknown sailor

The Third great day in December! Temp was between 51-54, sunny, I was toasty. I used my glacier gloves, a Hot Chillies layer under my drysuit fleece, new O’Neill bootie liners with the Pro-Limit booties , helmet liner. I put the new bootie liners under my drysuit (they’re higher than the NRS bootie liners), booties went over drysuit, and my feet only got a little cold in the morning, then they were warm for the rest of day.

Long day; I sailed from 10-3. I was solo for the first hour and the last ½ hour. There were 4 or 5 sailors and 2 or 3 kiters. It seemed like they started late and left early. The conditions were fantastic. I sailed pretty hard and didn’t take very many rest breaks. I don’t know why I held up for 5 hours in the chop, building waves, and strong wind. Maybe it’s because I was pretty careful to take Advil and I mostly avoided being overpowered or underpowered. The RWind 85 probably helped too, in the rough water. Also, I’ve been sailing a lot this fall. Maybe I’m getting conditioned a little bit. There were tiny, nothing waves in the morning, during low tide, but they got pretty big in the afternoon as the tide came in. They were still floppy wind waves but big enough to start to require some care to get out, on occasion, with 1 or 2 scary high jumps, and some attempts at going down the line- I’m improving at it. I stuffed the board good into 1 wave on the way out. I knew I was going to get airborn when I saw the wave peaking right in front of me. I was fully powered, so I decided my only option was to unhook and go for a big jump. It broke a second too early and it grabbed the nose of the board as I was launching myself up. I left my board and continued going up, doing a nice loop, and landing hard, a little way off from my equipment. Someone was sailing in, right at that moment, and gave me a grin and a thumbs-up and I think he was laughing. The WSW wind direction was nice! It was almost side shore. In that wind direction, the waves change to more southerly right in the break. I alternated sailing right in front, and in the deep hole, (a little down wind of all the rocks). The waves were a little better right in front but down wind was good for a rest- smoother water on the inside. NOTE; I was talking to a local surfer who came to look at the conditions. He said Deep Hole never gets any swell in a W or SW wind direction because Long Island blocks the swell. He said it has to be S to really build up the good surfing waves.