BRRRRR Nederlands

Anyway got bored of Tom talking about his RRD 91.. Blah Blah .. only kiddin mate.. and headed back to the cold.. back through Athens to Vassiliki then to Igoumenitsa.. maybe witnessed the most craziest driving of my life in Athens.. where people would race along the motoway and overtake on the inside without their headlights on.. where the road didnt have street lighting..

Ferry to Ancona then to Lake Garda for one night, through to Zurich past lake Como and through a 17km pass through the alpes.. you can see the weather change as soon as your though the alpes.. rain and more rain!!

camped up for the night just outside Freiburg then on toward sunny Amsterdam.. to meet up with my friend Mark, who I used to sail with when in lived in Amsterdam..

Parked up in Muiderburg outside of Amsterdam towards Almere, as I knew this spot and wouldn't get hassled free camping.. and the locals bars and restaurants are very good!! txt'd mark and the wind was arriving right on time.. meeting in schellinkhout, 11am the next day. So old Mark arrives 2 hours late (fair play though he just have a little'un to sort out) in the tinyest rental car that I think was available packed with windsurf kit.. a proper Noddy car! Mark pointed out that even the interior light had water leaking into it.... i'm rigged and on the water 5.7 Naish Sessions and rrd FSW 96.. what a great board this is the first time I used it.. super sweet and easy to jump.. the kode 103 will have to go.. had a great days sailing, and Mark on his 5.7 Simmer ion and 85 pocket wave, nice. Its been along time since i've sailed with this guy and it was truely great to be blasting out again with old matey!

Schellinkhout the following day, looked like the same wind strenght again.. but out back it was seriously over 35knts and gusting.. close set of waves, which meant you would have to gybe super tight over the back of one set or take a longer gybe over two sets of wave.. tricky! great ramps out back 4-5ft with clean vertical faces meant point your toes and crank it in!! a great day out on 4.4 with the good old 85 rrd FSW, and matey on his 85 pocket wave and newly purchased 4.7 Simmer ion! he must have been serously overpowered! feeling the cold here as I had to purchase a summer pryde suit with 2mm underlayer.. trying to acclimatize from 35degrees to 15degrees.. brrrrrr

I wont remind Mark about bringing his boom next time as he has two now!!

Ferry Back to Blighty

Anyhoo

Just uploaded pictures.. including:-

A View from a restaurant In Paros/ Parikia.. Great stuffed Calamari washed down with Alpha beer..

Pounda beach/ Paros.. Flat Water, but the wind seemed more constant than the other side of the island...

Gyros Pita.. We lived on these things.. Pita bread/ Grilled Chicken/ Chips/ Tzatziki sauce.. Nice!! we ate 2 of these, or with Greek salade at 2.5 euros each and cheep Alpha beers...we befriended an Albianian waiter who would find us the best seats to watch the gorgeous Greek women and then at the end of the evening ask us what we were prepared to pay for the food!!

Tom evening sailing on his Tushy Lightning 9.4.. Naxos Lagoona.. strangely with no-one else on the water.. normally it was packed with Freestylers and beginners! Had one of my best days sailing.. out past the markers through to the large swell further out.. Its Starboard jumping in Naxos and Port-tack in Paros.. so I prefered sailing in Naxos!

Agios Georgios/ Naxos.. wind was pretty pants but had potential to be excellent..

Where we free camped in Vassiliki/ Lefkada (mainland Greece)

Smoking Clutch..Hermaprodites & Piri Piri Chicken

We raced down to Solden in Austria to Watch the England v Germany game.. got there as the game was just underway.. and at a quick glance I though we were winning.. but Germany was playing In white.. Shit! A quick glance around and we were surrounded by Germans!! so off to a typical Austrian Bar where they all supported England.. we lost! a result was I pulled an Austrian Hermaphrodite who proposed that we move to Amsterdam and live a happy contented if not rather bizarre life!!.. i've always got that to fall back on..

through the Bremmer Pass.. where we stopped half way down and the brakes were smoking on both vans!! damn I left the Handbrake on when the brakes were super hot... not a good idea as the disks are now wharped and everytime I break hard the van shudders to a stop..

Italy.. all I can say was, you know when you cross the border from Austria into Italy.. the women are amazing.. Tom and I stopped off for an expresso at a typical motorway service station.. to be greated by a very cute girl making the coffee.. all smiles and eyelashes.. hmm and then in came 3 other very attractive ladies.. this was more like it, and they dont mind me looking at them rather than Engish girls who would rather poke me in the eyes!

Lake Garda 7days.. well what can I say.. can't be bothered

Croatia..10 days..we found this great campsite for burning out clutches.. needless to say that Tom gave it his best shot..reversing up a steep 1:4 incline and reving the tits out of his van, to be engulfed in a cloud of clutch smoke.. and no reverse gear.. I though that it was game over for the T5 and off to a local Garage but we let it cool down and it went on to do over 5 thousand more miles. The thing I found about Croatia is that it was serously over-priced.. the cost of fish and food was way over the top and the standard low.. so we stuck to BBQ with the "Son of Hibatchi" a great litle BBQ that served us proud, we usually ate Chicken in Hot Piri Piri sauce with Pasta and salade.. washed down with Peroni Larger..( the beer and wine, we brought in Italy, super cheap and really good!) .had a few days good windsurfing but nothing really of note so we decided to leave and off to Greece..

we traveled to Split where we booked the Ferry From Ancona to Patras.. we Arrived in Ancona from Split, queued for 3 hours in pure sweaty chaos and pandamonium to hand over the booking reference that we received from the agent over the internet some few days previous.. only to hear the response, "Er sorry that number doesnt mean anything.. you can try tomorrow if you get here early.?." the next morning we arrived early to be greeted by a girl serving who was seriously not interested in our predicament.. she explained that she hadn't had her morning coffee and could we come back in half an hour?! Half an hour later, returned and tried again.. she was less that clueless.. she asked her manager and then sat on the phone for another 10mins then passed me the tickets..breathe in Breathe out...We we on the ferry to Greece

Better Late than never..

So here in hot sweaty Singapore with a few hours free I thought that I would add a few photos and comments to the blog...

taking it from the top..leaving Dover to sunny Calais.. Tom had purchase a new shiny LWB VW T5.. OK, OK with a fiamma roof vent and converted by Mark at vans for windsurfing (still not an ultra reliable T4 though ;-)).. he managed to pull out all stops and convert the van for windsurfing in under two weeks.. good work Mark! The problem with the newly purchased T5 was the gear change, grinding noises changing from 3,4 gears.. bit upsetting for old Tom as he was feeling the pressure, purely from myself, to get on the road and pull his finger out!.. and was worried the lemon he had brought wouldnt make the trip.. so back to the Garage, but no luck still the same bag!

"Sod it, lets go" was Tom's response after picking the van up from the garage.. thats the spirit.. so 2 hours later we arrive in Dover for the ferry to Calais!!

Stopped of in Brugge, to sample the local delights..i.e women on Bicycles and Belgium beer.. we brought the bikes with us after some deliberation about security ( attached to the back of my van) but cycling around the Belgium town is the only real way to see it.. epecially after a few Westmalle beers!! we brought the Satnav with us to find our way back as I've had experience of being lost in Brugge before after a few too many!

I've uploaded a picture of Tom ( I think he's breathing in) wandering around Brugge.. I may come to the weight issue later but.. seriously the scales in Naousa were fixed.. and theres no-way I weigh 2 kg more than the "albanian"

Finding a camp site in Brugge we discussed with the receptionist a pitch... but they were full, they would however let us camp in the reception car park for the full price of a pitch... Hmmm.. so we camped 50 meters down the road from the camp site and used their facilities... thats the way it was going to be... this is Europe baby and were not following the rules!

Down, across to Antwerp then across to Germany and down towards Stuttgart.. parked up in some very quiet German town for the evening just outside the Blackforest.. to find the only pub in town that had an all you could eat BBQ on... SWEEETT!! so we made ourselves truly at home.. smiling alot to the locals as we couldn't speak a word of German and they couldn't speak a word of English... the war wasn't mentioned once!

uploaded picture parked alongside a river, not the best idea in summer, as you tend to get the Mossie massive and once in the van can tend to drive you insane!! but nice cuppa in the morning..

Santa Maria RRD worship and Jinxed Rig

14/09/2010

Finally some wind arrived, some friends wanted to go to Santa Maria beach for sunbathing, so I thought I would give it another try as John had been singing it’s praises for so long I thought 3^rd time lucky!

I rigged the 6m Naish Amp and 110L RRD FSW and found I was nicely powered up so changed to the 91L board.  I couldn’t believe it, this was some of the best sailing I had here getting some really high jumps on the ramps and there was only one other person sailing there. 

Obviously the effect of the new 91Litre RRD Freestyle waveboard Ltd Edition had an effect on the viewing public on the beach and I put my kit down and managed to get a photos of some admirers – see below.

I am not sure quite whether the kit was jinxed after this but with the next events due to happen started to evaluate if the pleasure/pain balance was restored??

I headed out sailing on a port tack out to sea and under 1km out I heard a crack and landed backwards in the water, further investigation showed me that my new Neil pryde X6 Boom mast clamp alloy section had broken by what look like fatigue facture.  I still had one good side to the boom so tried to sail back with that but then heard the second crack with the read carbon section breaking now.  Considering my options I opted for swimming back holding nose of board with the rig trailing.  I thought this would be the best option as the current and wind was luckily with me and I would have risked losing parts of the boom is I tried to derig. 

Making it to shore I took the following photos.  I generally like the rigidness of the NP boom in comparison to my previous my boom but think that maybe because there is no give in it that this would have cause the facture with all the jumps I have been attempting recently.  However I don’t I think this is a part of windsurfing and if it is not meant to be used so rigorously it is not fit for purpose.  Luckily the boom was new and under guarantee.

15/09/2010

New Golden Beach, rigged 5.3m + 91L in flukey conditions, later on between 3pm -6m  the lulls filled in and had a great sailing session with Chris from Whiltshire.

16/09/2010

Light wind session down at New Golden, gave some friend’s an introduction to windsurfing for an hour or 2.

No Wind - Let's go on a Horse Trek! and Maybe try Yoga???????

9/08/2010

With not much wind I decided to have a look at other activities to do on the Island so went on a Horse Trek at Thannis near to Naousa , Ambelas which was a very nice Trek for 1 ½ hours with a horse called Easer.

Here’s the link:  http://www.parosriding.com/

12/08/2010

Still not much wind, went to New golden beach and rigged 9.4m, this was probably one of the most unpleasant sails yet, as the wind was very light and would not keep the board planning easily at all.

13/08/2010

Still no wind.  After meeting someone a yoga teacher from Maui at Tao’s, a  Thai restaurant /car in Ambelas  a few days ago. She talked me into attending a yoga class as she said it would help reduce strain injuries (with which I had previously had problems) and that all the top surfers/windsurfers in Maui do it.  After the persuasion I attended the class and was pleasantly surprised how much stretching is done and how relaxing it felt at the end and would recommend it to anyone.

Here’s the link  www.lapierra.com

Kite Surf Rescue - Mat said I'll burn in Windsurf hell :)

8/09/2010

Headed to Poundta for some lightwind practise 4m/128L. Whilst out there were many Kite surfer trying to make the most of the light winds.  The wind totally dropped and a few of their Kites dropped in the water with no possibility of trying to get them flying again.  I offered my help to one of them (Hanus from Italy) the rescue involved flip the kite over so it no longer caught what wind there was them both swimming towards each other whilst he wound up his lines.  Once wound up it was possible for him to hold the rear foot strap and get dragged to shore.  As there was no wind I felt we were both going down wind with some current as well so we abandoned and the rescue Jet ski did the rest of the work.

Later on I rigged the 9.4m and was powered up nicely.