Double-checking my small order of sails from Sweden turned into a bit of a shocker as nothing was on the way – the warehouse guy had a serious flu and no gear had been dispatched. 5.3 and 4.7 are the essential sizes for my mission and now I had to act fast. With a flight leaving the next day, I contacted my good friend Petteri, Finland Simmer distributor and firearms specialist for Finnish special forces, who had a few of the latest Simmer Style Icons for me. Alright! 5.3 and 4.7 here I go, I just needed to take a 3 hour train ride to the Eastern town of Imaatra, minutes from the Russian border.
Upon arrival I met Petteri and he handed me a 5.0 and a 4.5, not entirely the sail sizes required. Left with no option, I grabbed the sails now with less than 12 hours to go and took my train back to snowy cold Helsinki, thinking the whole time that my entire mission was setting up to be an underpowered failure. Visions of being passed by kiters and others on bigger sails haunted me. Checking the forecast again and again lead to misery, the wind was actually getting lighter and lighter. At least the surf would be good, if not epic.
ARRIVAL
Upon arrival I met my high school pal Josh Angulo, who needs no introduction. Everyone reading this knows the history of our many epic missions out in Cabo Verde. All we do is score. We drew up a plan to maximize our opportunity to sail Ponta Preta while fitting in every nook and cranny that might be working in between the tides and predicted wind shifts and such phenomena. This was the one swell in a season full of near misses that was sure to be breaking solid at our favourite point, everything was lining up. My only concern was the wind. 7:00 am at the Angulo centre, after double cappuccinos downed and bold plans being drawn up – we ended up detouring considerably and about to surf a questionable spot when it became clear I had loaded the wrong wetsuit for Josh, so back to the centre we went. That delay helped us remember our most important goal. It was 9am by the time we returned to the now sloppy looking surf break. My immediate observation was that it was suddenly getting windy. That was it. The wind siren had sounded. Scramble mode back to the truck and directly to Ponta Preta, which had positively turned on since we checked it early
first thing.