WEEK ONE - TWO EDS ARE BETTER THAN ONE!
Two Eds on a wave.
What can I say about the 2022 first week windsurfing course, except that you don't get an Ed for ages and then two come along at once!
It's clearly taxing to have two people with the same name sailing. How do mentally challenged windsurfers (and instructors) manage to differentiate between them? Well the answer came along quickly when one Ed got his board out.
As you can below, he is now called Ed Balls. With no respect whatsoever for our former Chancellor and rubbish Strictly contestant. Actually he turned out later with a dodgy hat and highly tinted sunglasses and looked for all the world like Dave Stewart from the Eurithmics - for those of you old enough to rembember them.
Ed's Balls
And this is the other Ed. He was simply amazing. I won't say that age he is, but he gives me at least 10 years for which he earned my unerring gratitude for making me seem young! Despite carrying a childhood knee injury his wave sailing was excellent and he shows us all that windsuring is not just for kids! Many more years sailing for him - and indeed the rest of us.
Ed with no balls
How would you sum up the first windsurfing week? Little wind, some waves and great company, I'd say. Quite a mixture of old and new faces and nationality. Three Germans for a start. Some people staying in the Loch Altan - they were the ones with the super toasty wetsuits each morning thanks for the boiler room. Others stayed locally in various places.
And of course we had the traditional excellent meal at Colls on the Friday night.
We started at Magheroarty with some sail on SUP and particulary worked on stopping ie stalling the board to wait for the waves. In the afternoon we headed right across the bay to get away from the fully on shore wind. A good plan until until what was left of the wind died and Liam and Seraina had a long walk back. Some nice waves over at the far side too.
Tuesday was a bit of a repeat only less wind so no sails. Even the reef wasn't working.The tides were going out a long way and we saw bits of the reef we've not seen before.
These two photos give you an idea. Of course Phil still managed to make the best of it.
What followed was two days at Dooeys. The sun continued to shine and scenery was magnificent.
Contrary to some rumours, beach access at Dooeys was fine. The Harty crew were at Carrickfinn so car parking wasn't an issue and, after all the Guinness we'd been drinking, the Portloos did a fine trade. You just had to leave a while between users...
Both days were sail on SUP and with some good waves at times. On the Wednesday the wind came up after lunch and the Germans headed straight down ready to plane. Klaus was just about to fly when I brought my quad wave board to the beach and instantly killed the wind. So, it was back to SUPs with sails, but still good.
Martina had a particularly good sail, as the videos later showed, but Seraina caught the 'best wave of the day'. Or so she said, as it wasn't witnessed or caught on video.
Talking of video, 2022 saw the return after Covid of the video feedback session. In this case, a big thanks to Mr Hart who volunteered his projector and saved the day for us! Despite the relatively windless conditions there was remarkably good footage and excellent learning points. However I also have to report that the abuse from your friends also put in a good post Covid showing.
The view across the airport at Carrickfinn.
On the Friday we moved to Carrickfinn for some sail on SUP but with very small waves. Then suddenly it switched with 15 knots and there were big smiles, planing and waterstarts for 30 minutes. But then it dropped and that was the end of our only planing wind all week.
Phil kept us hard at it with some massive pumping training (yes, even Lords pump these days). Boy were we tired as we crawled up for lunch on the dunes. The sun was blazing at this stage so we took a long sleepy lunch. In a first for these courses, Martina led us in some post lunch stretches to get ready for the water again. For some of us, this was even harder than the pumping sessions.
Small waves at Carrickfinn
We smiled when we saw Harty heading back from the beach along the airport fence.
Peter Hart leads a new group in Donegal?
However when I put this to Peter he laughed and immediately topped it. He has a photo of his van in the same spot with a cow and bull doing what cows and bulls do. You can make up your own captions for this, but it does perhaps explain why his Donegal courses are always full?
And we finished up on Saturday at Falcaragh. No wind at all, but the waves were quite good, but hard to predict. A tough but good session.
By this stage Ming, supported by his body-fixer Tim, had joined us to limber up for week two. I have to say, through gritted teeth, that Ming supped brilliantly. We thought we was just showing off as he repeatedly switched stance to keep turning on his front side. However, it turned out that was actually a necessity as his neck won't turn much anymore and he needs to see where he is going. Either way, it was very impressive.
Tom on his SUP
Did you ever see Magheroarty so flat?
And now to the people.
Ed Balls had great fun and has improved enormously since we last saw him. Properly converted to SUP and he also did well when he borrowed Seraina's much smaller one. Actually, talking of Seraina, these two came as a pair. They shared a van from Dublin and generally got on like a married couple - always together, sharing each other's food - in fact we were expecting them to finish each other's sentences. However, while they are married, it's not to each other. They met through windsurfing and are firm friends, but this had to be explained to other confused group members.
Rather ironically Ed lost a fin - at Carrickfinn....
Ed - without his balls
Seraina on a wave, but not perhaps the wave of the day
Seraina was another who sailed well while giving it her all. Sure there was the odd walk and spectacular dismount in the waves, but she got on really well on her all purpose SUP.
I thought I would avoid posting a phot of Liam - after he told us a story about picking up a boy to take home. However it turned out to be a buoy. He found this high tech floater which was a wave logger including a tracker. So eventually a boffin turned up at this house to reclaim it (not the police!).
Liam has limited days to sail with us, but one good sail on SUP session has convinced him he is missing out. He actually has a SUP with with no fitting. So he rushed home to get out his Black and Decker to correct this - what could possibly go wrong.
No towels on the beach - just Germans.
It was particuarly good to see Martina and Tom join us all the way from northern Germany. Tom had been ill but said that he fixed his mind on returning to Donegal and this really helped him through. It was aided by the fact that his consultant was also a windsurfer and encouraged him to do this. So Tom reckons that windsurfing here makes you better!
So we will forgive him an unwarranted display of Germans in speedos. All offending photographs have been humanely destroyed.
Tom, Martina and no (visible) speedos
Klaus sailed very well despite the lack of a bigger board. However this course has now convinved him it is time to buy something bigger. He did really well to be sailing on a small board in these light winds - and doing heli tacks as well. So next year - assuming our now normal damn all wind - he should have even more fun.
John was the quiet tall man amongst us. He's very modest and downplays his windsurfing skills, but showed us what he could do at Dooeys. He also used the SUP very well with a paddle, although he has such a relaxed stance you'd think he wasn't trying.
Our senior sailer Ed was brilliant. He said he had a dodgy ankle but it didn't show when he was on a board. However he hadn't tried sail on SUP so when he borrowed one to try at Dooeys he didn't know to remove the leash. One wonders how he might have got on sailing with a leash if we hadn't stopped him. On the other hand he was so good at gybing onto a wave that he didn't need to tack. So he might have got away with being leashed. We shall never know.
Steve was always easy to spot with the bright white hair which always shone out. He brought a sore back with him which went bad on the second day. However Donegal is a civilised place and he soon went to a local physio who popped him back in. So the next day he sailed at Dooeys where he was seen doing helicopter tacks inside and catching loads of waves as you can see above.
Sadly he then hurt his ribs and so could only act as a very useful extra cameraman after that.
It was never quiet when Bara was around. He's so keen he's always asking questions.
Phil had been training us on how to uphaul a stupidly small board, but at Dooeys Bara would only try one uphaul on his wave board. He claimed he could waterstart, although it looked like pretty hard work to me. Then, as the wind died, he couldn't uphaul and ended up a long time in the impact zone way down. However he said he loved the scenery.
For some reason he struggles to pronounce Magheroarty - he should try spelling it in the full Irish!
Bara's other moment of glory came at Carrickfinn when his mast popped out of the UJ. I have a lot of sympathy with this as I've got this particular T-shirt. However by then Jarlath had joined us and he specialises in rescuing people whose kit has come apart. Ever watchful, he noticed Bara struggling and sailed over to help him. Even is small waves, getting a mast back onto the pin is a two man job.
Alan on the waves
As you have gathered, I had a ball mostly with sail on SUP. You can learn a lot of useful wave stuff this way and then hopefully translate this into reall wave stuff when the wind gets up. In my case the jury is still out on the latter...
So that was week one of 2022. In the words of Mr Balls - Beautiful beaches! Fantastic company!! Great week!!! Or as Klaus put it, what do we need wind for if we have good company.