“ The best part was just being out there with mates pushing the limits and having fun.”
19
Moving to the West Country to marry Zara in‘ 96 we live in Clevedon on the Bristol Channel. We can windsurf from the house but conditions are much better a few mins away at Weston-Super-Mare and Burnham-on-Sea. If you ignore the brown colour of the water both are great bump and jump wave spots. Downside is the massive tide. We only get a few hours either side of high and it doesn’ t work that well with the wind from a SE direction.
The years have been kind and I am very lucky to have windsurfed in many amazing places around the world from South Africa to Australia. But number one has to be Maui. For its beauty and the wind / wave conditions it is still the mecca of windsurfing.
Back in the day( early 90s) I spent a lot of time training in Lanzarote. We were slalom sailing with local hotshots Bernardo and Nino Navaro at Costa Tequise when we were joined by the newly formed PWA racers all arriving for an upcoming race. It was like a who’ s who of windsurfing. Anders Bringdal and Bjorn Dunkerbeck were blasting around, showing off, and having a great day. The bonus came later that evening when we were in a local bar. Up on the big screen they had been filming us all and there I was, with my hero’ s, laying down gybes and grinning from ear to ear.
“ The best part was just being out there with mates pushing the limits and having fun.”
El Medano
I have just come back from El Medano in Tenerife where we spend our winters. Whitey, Jamie Dodds and Colin Dixon were all staying with us and John Skye popped over for the day from his home in Gran Canaria. We all had a great wave session up at‘ the wall’. It was some of the best swells we have had for a while and we made the most of it. But the best part was just being out there with mates pushing the limits and having fun.
Without sounding smug winters over the last few years in Medano have been awesome. In 2016 we admittedly had wave kit from 3.4m to slalom 8.6m, which meant we sailed every day, bar six days in the three months we were there. Can’ t ask for better than that!
It is a truly amazing place to windsurf and very close for UK sailors with cheap flights a plenty. You have three areas to choose from in Medano, south bay, which is where most of the schools are and where the world’ s best slalom sailors come to train over the winter with TWS. The wall, which is up-wind of south bay, is the best for wave riding and super safe. Then there is Cabezo where we have a house. This is the location for the PWA Wave Championships. Great surf and good for jumping but not for the faint hearted. It has a nasty rock called Godzilla that has eaten more fins and boards than you can shake a stick at. We love it. There is always something to do with good surf / SUPing, cycling and mountain biking. In addition our dog, Ziggy, loves being a Spanish perros!
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