Windsurfing

Keeping up my theme of going places outside of the city, I spent some time with my friend Marcel in Barrie. His house is quite nicely placed on the shore of Lake Simcoe. As if that wasn't cool enough, they have a wee dock beside the water with a canoe and a windsurfing board. Indifferent to the somewhat chilly late September weather, I decided to give windsurfing a shot. I always like trying new things and, well, windsurfing is a new thing.

I need to be honest here and point out that I wasn't entirely unprotected from the elements. Marcel lent me a wetsuit-vest thingy. I don't entirely know how to describe it, but it was a short-sleeved t-shirt sort of a garment with a zip on the back. When you zip it up, you have your own "Keira Knightley in a corset in Pirates of the Caribbean" moment but you do forget about it after a while. Actually, by the end I didn't want to take the thing off because it really did keep me warm.

I was also given a pair of water-shoes (or river-socks or some combination of the two terms) to protect my feet. I was warned about a curious creature called a Zebra Mussell. It seems these strange little things amuse themselves by sitting on the floor of the lake and sticking a sharp pointy thing up the way in the hope that some unsuspecting windsurfer might step on them. Odd, I know. I think they might be a product of The Fall.

The windsurfing itself took place over two days. The first was fairly windy. In fact, as we were in the water we noticed the clouds were getting darker and we expected a storm to come in soon. I actually saw lightning in the distance but I didn't mention it to Marcel until afterwards because I didn't want him to call a halt to things. We went in when it started raining. (As if that would stop us in Scotland!) The second day was much more placid and I found it much easier then. Having said that, I did have a day of experience under my belt, as it were.

As with a lot of sports, windsurfing has a bit more to it than meets the eye. You have to keep your balance on the board and you have to point the board in the right direction. The mast must lie at right-angles to the board on the surface of the water. You also need to lift the mast out of the water with your back to the wind and ensure that when it gets close to upright your body is counter-balancing enough that you can hold it at arms-length. Then once you can do that all you need to think about is rotating the sail to catch some wind and steer it in the direction you want to go. What could be easier? Well, pretty much every other water sport ever invented, except that kiteboarding one. It's wack.

I managed to stand on the board. That was ok. It was quite hard to get onto it in the first place because the board has a hard surface and kneeling on it is sore on the knees. Once standing, I had to be sure my feet were equidistant from the mast. (Great word) This meant I was applying equal pressure to both sides of the board so it wouldn't rotate either way.

The next thing was to raise the mast out of the water. This is achieved by picking up a rope that is attached to the mast and pulling it towards you, leaning back and using your bodyweight rather than your arms. As you do this, it might get interesting. Hopefully you have positioned yourself with your back to the wind and your board across the way. If so, the sail will point directly away from you as it comes out of the water and it won't catch any wind. Think of this as being in "neutral". Now imagine an automatic windsurfing board. That'd be weird.

If the wind is NOT directly behind you, it gets fun at this point. The wind blows the sail until it points in the direction the wind is blowing. Think of the sail here like the classic "Dad's hankie prior to launching a kite". If the sail starts to turn, you can no longer rely on it as a couter-balance and the chances are you'll fall in. If you don't fall in, you can correct the situation by rotating the board until it is perpendicular to the sail.



Rotating the board is achieved by putting more weight on one foot than the other. Whatever side you push will go forwards, so left foot goes clockwise and right foot goes anti-clockwise. This is a bit weird at first but after a while I found myself instinctively using my feet to correct the angle of the board to the sail as the wind changed or the board drifted.

As the mast gets closer to you, you need to grab the bar. The bar goes all the way round the sail and it's what you hold on to while riding. It's not possible to raise the mast out of the water by pulling on the bar in the first place because you wouldn't be able to keep your balance wrestling with the force of the wind, weight of the mast and your own balance on the board.

Once you have the bar in your hand (I managed this a few times) you start to rotate the sail to one side. The first time I did this I got a fright because it was the first day I mentioned and the wind was STRONG. I suddenly caught the wind and thought "Oh no! What do I do now?". I answered my own question by promptly falling into the lake. I'm pretty sure that wasn't the next thing on the list.

All in all, I had a great time. It was tricky and demanding on my balance, co-ordination and physical endurance but I liked it. By the end I was becoming quite confident with the first couple of steps like correcting the board angle and raising the mast out of the water. The part I was finding tricky was leaning back enough so that I could hold the bar at arms-length. I was standing too upright and pulling the mast completely vertical. This meant I didn't have much stability and my arms were weakening fast.

The other bizarre thing of note was that I got slashed by a tiger mussel, despite my protective footwear. The blighter got me on the hand. I think it was actually my very first attempt and I fell backwards off the board. I instinctively reached out my hands behind me to break the fall and cut my right thumb in the process. I didn't feel anything but when I was about to climb onto the board again, I noticed blood coming out of my hand. The cut seemed to be fairly deep. When I looked at it the area inside was white with a few red dots of blood on it. It looked odd to me. Someone later suggested the white stuff was called "bone" but I don't think it was that deep.