SHOOTING TIME
I am sure by now those of you who are still reading this are all playing the world’s smallest violin to my tales of woe and jet setting lifestyle. So I will bring you back up to speed. UK commitments done and having competed in the first UK slalom race with Gaastra/Tabou finishing 1st and 2nd, my next job was organising the International Gaastra and Tabou photo shoot back on Maui. It’s not actually as glamorous as you might think, long days and hard work. To add to the stress, the day before we started our shoot I injured my ankle sailing at Ho’okipa, badly! I was unable to sail apart from short, key moments when I had to brace it with strapping and suck it up, but in the end I was very proud of what we achieved during the shoot all things considered.
REHABBED AND READY
After the photo shoot finished I was able to focus on rehabbing my ankle. I tried to sail only when conditions were right for completing unfinished testing on a certain size board or sail. Slowly and with time nearly running out, I was pretty much 100% finished with all my testing. We had one week intense race training with a few of the guys left on the island banging through maybe 20 races each day. After this I was feeling completely ready for my trip and the first event of the year.
ASIA BOUND
My journey from Maui to Korea was good, flying Maui-Oahu-Tokyo-Busan and then a final one-hour ride to Jinha Beach. At check-in I had five large bags of windsurfing equipment and two normal size luggage bags, where I put clothes, food supplements, sports shakes and all my small windsurfing accessories. I tried to split the two normal bags equally so that if one would get lost I would still have enough fins, extensions etc. to be able to compete. My two normal bags were covered by my baggage allowance but I had to pay excess on my large bags. In Maui I thought I had made a good deal and I was charged for two sets of windsurfing equipment, totalling $275, but when I went to change planes with Japan airlines, I was asked to pay an extra $1200 US dollars for my large bags, ouch!
After a heated debate of what one windsurfing set consists of, while the rest of the plane had boarded, we finally reached an agreement that if I paid a further $325 then they would allow me to travel. I accepted. It can be the most stressful part of a trip when you are checking in with an airline and you’re not 100% sure of the rules with the excess baggage. My advice is to always phone up the airline first and explain what you are travelling with and see if they can make a price for you in advance so that when you turn up to the airport there can be no nasty surprises.
