With the weather looking pretty cold and no one to sail with the East coast was an unpromising prospect for Thursday. This was a bit disappointing because NE is a nice direction, at my local spot all be it a little cold. It always gives some good side shore condition and good swell.

I am not a big fan of sailing by myself in these conditions (I lost my rig last time!) so the prospect of discussing some projects with Adam Sims and his new brand Silte along with Turfdog development, sounded a convincing argument for a session in Kent.

Slightly upset I had left my home spot in some of my favourite conditions. I was not to fully convinced about the conditions Greatstone would have to offer. Sims was adamant there would be some good ramps for backs and pushes. On arrival I was pleasantly surprised by the decent size waves with a good pitch.

Sailing with Adam never disappoints. I keenly rigging up my 5.3 and was presented with the by a "beautiful" spectacle of Adam in a father Christmas hat and RRD Y fronts setting the tome of the session. I had one of the best sails for a long while, hardly being bothered by the cold and spending at least 3hours out on the water. All in all pretty good fun, trying to keep a Christmas hat out of my eyes mid jump.

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Not so nice Norfolk

Once again on Thursday conditions looked good in Norfolk so I decided to make the one and a half hour trip up from Suffolk. Checking out Waxham in North East Norfolk, we found the wind was not playing ball with 10mph winds dead off shore coming from the west with no swell. Not quite the predicted NNW 25 knots! After a little we headed up to East Runton only to find the wind had swung and was now NNW 25 knot, dead onshore!!! Should have seen it coming really, so back to Waxham where it was looking good. It was side on and windy, with the swell starting to fill in so I rigged my 4.7 and 82L only to find that the second I placed my board on the beach, the wind dropped to 10-15knots. After a brief float I decided to watch how Henry was getting on. I found him down wind with a fist size knot in his kite. Game over for him after just 10 minutes!! I was up for going home at this point but Henry persuaded me to rig my 5.7 and 90l. I floated out with the wind a little more side shore but was incredibly under powered. I was just heading in when the wind filled in, followed by sleet. It was not too bad and I got a couple of jumps and rides before the wind died again after about 15 minutes. Well you win some you lose some but some days it seems we were never were going to win - still a 15mnute session is better than no session, all be it a little cold on the face.

East runton

Thursday was a pretty good day at East Runton. I got down mid morning to find Steve Thorp and Dave white on the beach. After hearing the wind might be dropping, I rushed to rig up as I want another go on my new quad. I had a pretty good session with some jumping and wave riding befre the wind dropped off at mid day. Just had to try and avoid falling in, as you ended up with a white water ice cream headache!

Snowboarding

I may have been slightly annoyed at loosing my rig the other day. Waking up this morning to see my house looking like a postcard picture form the Alps soon put this out of my mind. If only I had a snowboard! Luckily windsurfers think alike. My mate Jimbo had no one to snowboard with. We quickly built a kicker and spent the later half of the day until dark having fun in the snow. If there's more snow tomorrow, I'm thinking of a turf dog prototype snowdog board!

Bye Bye rig

The east coast has been pretty cold and snowy for the last few days. Today there was a little break in the weatherand I managed to get out in the NE wind on my 4.2 at Felixstowe. It was pretty good fun for the first 20 minutes. I was pretty warm and there was a good period between sets, as the waves were being diffracted round the sandbank near the ferry river mouth entrance. I started getting pretty confidently into my jumping until, on the landing of a stalled forward, my board detached from the rig!!! There are quite a few rips on the east coast so after initially trying to save my rig I ditched it and paddled for the shore. I was back on shore in about 5 minutes and sweating, shows how good new wetsuit technology is getting. Sadly no sign of my rig!!!

I thought I would take a look a couple of miles down the coast towards Felixstowe pier. I spotted the rig in the distance a bit far to paddle out and retrieve in the cold weather. I thought I would wait to see if the waves would push it in shore, however the rip was not playing ball and I watched it drift out to sea again with the tide before it got dark!! I was really glad I did not attempt to swim, as I would most probably would have drifted off too!!

A pretty nice day in my garden before I left! Luckily it was a bit warmer on the coast!