Yeah, well, I gave it a shot. Waves were crap and the big foamy is like steering a battleship. Plus it's not smooth enough to get up without a lot of friction. I think a well waxed glass board would be a lot easier.
Still, it was fun! The good thing about being a geezer is no one has any major expectations, including present company.
Surfs up!
Interesting day! North wind wiped out the outrageous northern set of the previous day, but set up a confused wave train unattached from normal offshore swell. I was going to go with the full size foamy big board and try to stand up and do what the locals call "surfing." But the prospect of short rides into close-outs seemed dull. So back to the bodyboard. A few great rides, but the post break rebound was punishing and a clump of sand straight to the left eye had me give it up sooner than I'd have liked.
Tuesday Aug 16. Oh man, what a frustrating day. Probably the gnarliest sets of the week and I could not get outside! A fierce inshore northern current, approx 3-4 knots, would push me out of the approved "bodyboard zone" before I could get past the breakers.
I even started 10 yards south of the flags on the southern end and still never made it without entering lifegaurd whistle hell on the northern end. Four or five separate attempts on three different splashes during a 7 hour day.
Tomorrow a full-on big board attempt instead of this stupid bodyboard nonsense.
Better day! Smaller waves but still some good ones, and almost got into the green room for a second or two. Skills thought long dead are improving! Board rash getting worse though....
I haven't really done a whole lot of wave riding in the past few years, due to covid and sailing trips taking priority over beach trips. So I avoided the big board (a foamy) and choose a hard bodyboard instead.
Good thing, as the break here is a lot different than in Maryland. It's nice to actually be at a spot where there's a decent outside break. Couple of decent rides and one very good one, but didn't get a barrel...waves were big enough (estimated 3-5 feet in the larger sets) but skills were insufficient. Also, I forgot how hard it is to duck dive a short board due to the buyancy, so getting outside was a struggle initially.
I hadn't run the O/B for a couple of months so we launced and took a long-ish ride (for the i550) and then anchored, ate and fished. Then we headed back and that's when the fight started. The starboard bunk on my spot on the foating dock collapsed when we had the boat about halfway up....hmm. Luckily there are some unused 2x8 PT boards laying around and we eventually leveraged the bunk back on up on a makeshift repair. Hot, sweaty and exhausted, we retired to the car's AC and water supply. Add one more project to the boat list.
I had my little travel rod in the car and noticed fish feeding close to, well, not exactly a PIER, but a long riprap causeway out to the lighthouse and I took a few desultory casts. It was more to get the lay of the land around Portland Harbor.
The next day was meet up at Brooklin Boat Yard and take the boat about 2-3 hours up to Castine. Gorgeous day and a terrific sail. Next day was the race from Castine to Camden and that too was in perfect conditions. I think we took 2nd.
Then on Friday was the race from Camden to Brooklin. Ugly conditions with rain and a lot of breeze, but we were able to shake the reef out when we got to the Stonington Thoroughfare, and it ended up being a pretty nice sail.
Last race was Eggemoggin Reach, starting in no wind but building a lovely Southerly that topped out at about 12-14. Fantastic racing with 104 other classic wooden sailboats.
Next day was bring the boat back to BBY and clean up a bit. Dry out the chute and repack it, wash the rest of the mud off the anchor chain and so some more odds and ends. I was sad to leave Brooklin but did get a chance to scamper up Blue Hill Mountain! Outstanding trip
Visitors fron The Netherlands and I took the younger one out for a paddle. We caught some impossibly little fish. But one was a Norfolk Spot and that was kinda cool...I thought the water this far up, and well into the creek, was too fresh for spot. Guess not. We feed the fish a lot of green worms but didn't really do all that well. Still a nice day on the water in spite of the heat.
Splashed a kayak and went out to the river to see what the breeze was doing and crossed my toes that it would continue throughout the evening for MRSA WNR. It did but we punched a hole thru a competitors boat and that kinda soured the rest of the evening.
Storms went north or south of us, so we got a race in. Didn't necessarily look too likely earlier in the afternoon, when a large convective systom dumped rain on the O's game. Really nice night on the river though!