GOOD TIMES
I’m sticking hard to the ‘never leave wind for wind’ rule, there’s spray flying high on every mile of the coast and each break downwind looks more epic than the next but I’m going with our first stop, not least because we might have a baby in a few hours, so every second counts! Conditions here looked sort of good but it was hard to tell. I say ‘sort of’ because it had the look that spawned the well used surf idiom, ‘It’s always bigger than it looks!’. I rigged hastily my favourite combo when wracked with indecision, a 4.5 and twin fin Starboard Kode 82, a set up with a huge range to face the unknown. I’ve never windsurfed here before but I know the jump off spot from surfing. I exercise a good rule of thumb for launching at a virgin reef by launching off the back of the surge of the last wave in a set to give clear and deep water to progress from.
I make my way out to the break, quickly realising that it is definitely ‘bigger than it looks!’, trying (badly) to contain my excitement at sailing a new spot and finally about to score one of Ireland’s best right handers and starboard tack down the line that looks distinctly Maui’esque except for the crowds. Much as I absolutely love the valley isle of Maui and consider it a must visit for any windsurfer, for the next hour I catch more waves than I know I would in a month at Ho’okipa. That’s the upside of my ‘no fly’ spring break; the downside is Ho’okipa happens pretty much every day, my dream set up in Ireland has about the same frequency as Led Zeppelin reunions.