From Tarifa to plan B

Hello Everybody

After another day without wind in Tarifa while they gave some wind on windguru it was time for plan B, searching for wind on the way back home scoring another 3 days of sailing to make the trip back feel less long and a bigger success.

Instead of driving straight through Spain back home we drove past the Mediterranean sea with our first and longest stop in Delta Del Ebre. A wonderful nice Delta in the middle of Spain, 2 hours South of Barcelona where it looked like there was more water then land around you when you drove from spot to spot. It was full of really nice nature and wonderful sunsets. The first day after almost a whole night of driving to get there the wind didn’t show up, at least not at the spot where we were as it turned out that it was windy that day on the north side of the delta and not in the south. Not knowing better I got a message from a friend of Emi where I was going to sail the next day as he was coming down to the Delta also and was going for a Freestyle session on the north side of the Delta.

Great plan, with not too many wind in the morning the next day the waiting game started, with a few gust coming in Pablo (Emi’s friend) went on the water sailing full on in the gust, the rest of us started rigging up fast our biggest sail and went for a freestyle session, on hour it was perfect for my S1 4.7 but then the wind just started to blow like you can get in a real mistral, in just a matter of half an hour it went from 20 knts to 40 knts. Hoping for a bit less wind on the south side of the delta it seemed impossible to avoid the strong Mistral which only was getting stronger and stronger. Impossible to do Freestyle I just ended up in a nice jumping session on my S1 3.7 totally overpowered on a wave board till the water really started flying through the air.

The next day it still would be strong mistral in the morning and I went to search for some waves and see if you had them in the Delta, on the most north-westerly point we found a spot with a little bit of waves and howling winds. With the main sail sizes of sailors around 3.5 it was time to get my Swat 3.3 from underneath the dust and try to have a sail. The first hour the wind was so strong I didn’t have any control with my 3.3 and only could try to survive and do some big jumps on the way out. On the way in I was usually to overpowered to try anything so I was happy the wind dropped a bit an hour later finding some better “waves” to the right of the bay I was having the best time so far of 2012 on a 3.3 landing loads of takas and getting some good backloops I couldn’t remember I ever had such a good sail on such a small sail! An hour after that the wind dropped as fast as it came the day before and it was time to pack up and leave further home.

But still one stop was to be made; driving past Leucate around the midday it was a good stop with again stronger wind, although this time it was possible to do some good freestyle on my S1 4.0 at Eole. Sailing good powered up from start the wind started to drop off after 1,5 hour, looking like it would drop totally we packed up and made us ready to leave to see the wind pick up again, sadly enough we didn’t have enough time to get another session so the trip was definitely over and time to move back home and fight the cold and exams at home!

Cheers Dieter

Trip to Tarifa part 1

Hello everybody!

First of all, still a Merry Christmas and a Happy new year with the best wishes for 2012 out of warm Tarifa!

I’ve been already on a trip again for a good 2 weeks now and only have a few more days before we will be heading home again. So far the trip has been pretty all right, not the best of wind yet but for sure still scored some good sessions. We started the trip to the area of Quiberon where they gave a pretty good forecast and which wasn’t a too big way around on the way to Tarifa. Looking at 2 good days of wind it turned out on only one evening session of 2 hours in a cold 9-10°C. But it was at least something so already worth the detour. After 2 days of some side seeing it was time to leave to Tarifa as it didn’t look windy anymore in France and the forecast improved better for Tarifa for the upcoming week.

Arriving in Tarifa on Friday we scored our first wind on Saturday with a sunset session at Playa Chica in the town with a light Levante. Sailing just a small hour till it was too dark to still see the rocks on the side. The next day the Levante really kicked in at Tarifa blowing around 35-40 knts making it not perfect for Freestyle, I got a message it was great at Conil a small hour more west with a nice 25 knts side offshore. So decided to leave my 3.7 in the bag and drive to Conil to score a great session on 4.3 fully powered up with some nice small waves it just looked like Fuerte at Center 2. Sailing around for 3 hours the wind started to get a bit too gusty and knowing the next days still looked sick it was a good time to stop.

The next day we woke up at Conil already looking at a good 30-35 knts it was time to check out a spot even more west, it was time to check Valdelagrana. I sailed here 2 years ago also with waves with wind from the south but I heard it was a great place in strong Levante with death flat water. It was just liked they said, only that the wind wasn’t lighter than in Conil but sailing on death flat water I still could just sail my 4.0 fully powered to overpowered. That day was the best day of my whole trip so far with sailing around 3 hours again before the wind dropped out too suddenly I gave the best of myself! Making some big crashes but also some new moves it was a great training day of full flat water action!

The next day the Levante died again and it was only windy enough in Tarifa like it usually is with a weaker Levante, so Playa Chica was on the menu again with a nice sail for 4.3 it was another good day of sailing in Tarifa, trying to make the most out of it as the forecast didn’t look to good anymore it started to get too gusty already after 2 hours.

After that day we scored only a few more small sessions for about an hour every time, one more time with Levante and 2 more pumping sessions with Poniente (wind from the west). The rest of the time I finally found a place to test my SUP in the waves and catch some water action this way. The upcoming 3 days they give some weak Levante again and some waves so hopefully we can score some more action! Check out also my new pictures on my facebook fan page of my trip over here!

Cheers Dieter