Sunapee, Skiied, Josh, Kyle

Weather & Drive; 1 ¾ hours. 1 degree temp at the base in the morning. I was cold most of the day- underdressed.
Skiing; The snow was pretty good, although all man-made. It got slicker near the end of the day. No long lift lines. Sunapee was pretty small but the little terrain park, with small to medium jumps, kept everyone from getting bored.

Kalmus, Windsurfed, SW, 22-32, 28-38?, Oliver, 5.2,4.2/Acid 94

Weather etc; Air temp around upper 40’s or 50. My hands were cold with glacier gloves. I switched to O’Neill mittens for about 1 hour. They were toasty but very tiring for my forearms. I switched back to gloves at the end and it felt great to grip the boom again. Switching back and forth may be the best for a cold day.
Wave practice; It was low tide. The little wind waves were breaking in a line on the sand bar. I did a lot of wave sailing practice in those chop waves, turning downwind in both directions. I could easily turn straight downwind, did it over and over, but it was hard to go through the wind to clew first. I was a little overpowered at times with a well downhauled 4.2 but it was fun since I didn’t have much time to sail anyway, (2 hours). Oliver, from the IWindsurf forum, was the only other sailor there. I would have been happier on the Realwind 85, when it picked up, but it is still being repaired. IWindsurf recorded pretty high winds. I’m not sure it was really that strong.

Deep Hole, Windsurfed, SW/WSW/W, 12-22, Gerry & Locals, 6.2/Acid 94

Fog & Waves; I had some trouble getting out past the waves at first, with the southwest wind (side onshore), pretty big waves at high tide, dense fog, and wind that was a little light in the waves. It was better after about an hour, more wind and slight shift to WSW, and then got worse at the end, west wind but lighter. It wasn’t a very good site for sailing in heavy fog. I kept worrying that I was coming back too far upwind, in the rocks, or too far downwind, completely below the point. On the way in, the first thing that would come out of the fog was the line of whitewater from the waves, and then I would see the houses on the beach and I would know where I was. On a couple of runs, I couldn’t even make out the houses on the shore until I was just about through the waves and into the shallows. A few other sailors, including Gerry, gave it a try but no one did more than a run or two because they were underpowered on 6.2. or 6.5. One local, Jason, took one run out (on a 5.2 with 90 liters) and then we didn’t see him for a long time. He ended up at East Matunuck. He got a ride back from one of his buddies who was hanging out at Deep Hole, in the parking lot crew. I felt bad that Gerry was trying Deep Hole for the first time in such tough conditions. He couldn’t even see where the point ended through the fog. I was impressed that he even took one run, with the fog and light wind in the afternoon.

Weather etc; Air temp low 50’s, water temp mid 50’s, heavy fog and mist all day. The water temp is running about 10 degrees above average for January. It was almost 70 and sunny in Newton but foggy and cooler on the entire coast except pleasure bay. I used my O’Neill booties with the Sealskin socks. My feet, and everything else, were plenty warm. I sailed from 10-2:30 but took lots of rest time. I saw a few surfers go out in the morning although I couldn’t see them on the water through the fog. They were a little upwind of the launch.