So, the weather is starting to get nicer by the day and the smooth Northerly winds have begun to blow in the Pacific Northwest. I am so stoked! I can't wait to get out there. I missed some sick wind this weekend because I am working on a business plan and had to deal with computer troubles, and a flat tire on my car....blah blah blah!
Anyways, I found a 2007 14m Naish Raven for sale online.
It was a demo for http://www.boardsportsschool.com/ and it only had one hour of riding on it from one of their team riders. Then it sat in a storage room for 3 years.
BTW: They had excellent customer service. I talked and emailed back and forth with Rebecca. She was awesome to do business with!
I found it online, contacted them, and couldn't believe it. I love my 16m (same model) but I just felt it was too slow in the air during turns. So, I put my 16m up on ebay, sold it, and for $100 more I got what I really wanted...the 14m!
I can not wait to get out on the water to try it out. Some fellow kiters give me crap for buying it, but I love the power, light bar pressure...and now, the speed that the kite can move through the sky. If you haven't read about the Raven..check it's reviews out here:
mtmtSo, Kynan and I headed to Damon Point on Feb 20 and 21st. We got skunked! No more than 15-20 minutes on the water in crappy conditions. And it was cold as hell. The only fun part is that a homie of mine, Ross, brought a land board out. Here is a video of John Korn riding...crashing...while at the same time getting the worst possible advice from so called friends.
OK, so I have really slacked on finishing this trip up! Good thing I was on the last full day anyways, and who really cares about the travel day taking the plane home? No one does...that's who! So, I will finish up by telling you all about the fishing trip.
So, as mentioned Scotty, Duncan, Steve Anderson, Becky and I are all headed out in a fishing boat with our Capitan named Lola. Here is a picture of our capitan with Duncan and I both manning the fishing poles.
Anyways, it takes a bit of riding to get to our destination. On the way there we pass many elaborate vacation houses own by rich people. This one, in the next picture below, was still being built. There was a school buss parked out front that was obviously how they got so many workers to the job site every day.
Shortly after passing this house we come to a bay, only to watch a local land a nice mahi-mahi. We drive the boat over near him and spend $20 bucks on some bait fish. Bait fish for the larger game fish we want to catch are about 7-14 inch long needle fish.
mahi mahi
Our plans are to fish for Dog Snapper, so we had to a spot where a guy is already chumming for the Dog Snapper. We even see a few of them surface to eat the chumm.
The poles get rigged and Scotty and Steve start fishing. After 30 minutes or so, Duncan takes Steve's pole. After Scotty and Duncan fish it up for a while....nothing. No action what-so-ever...that is, until they hand me the pole.
Within 3 minutes of having the pole in hand I get a bite, I set the hook, and BAMM....I got a 70 lbs Dog Snapper on. This is when everything happens real quick like. The fish starts to run, I clamp down with my thumb on the spool...... the capitan goes to spin the boat around real quick...I take a dive and smash my face into the side of the boat...seconds later the Dog Snapper gets down under some rocks and breaks the line off.
Ok. so through all that I never let go of the pole. In fact, I didn't even put my hands out as I fell. I was taught at a young age "protect your fishing pole and / or gun when you fall"...I did just that and bruised my face in the process. I also burned the living crap out of my thumb!
Anyways, the capitan tells us the hard part about fishing these Dog Snapper is that they get down very fast and run up into the rock crevaces. Sucess rate is only about 1 in 10 fish hooked are actually landed.
Under water is much like the shoreline, which you can see gives the fish a ton of places to hide, but to also a place to break the fishing line off on. You can see the shelving that exist underwater in this video of the shoreline:
While we are fishing, Becky puts the flip, that is in an underwater housing, into the water to film what is under the boat. It is really fun to see all of the aquatic life just going along its business beneath us.
We spend the day fishing, and lose a ton of bait, but no one gets any closer than I do to landing a fish in the boat. Bunner, but not a complete bust.
We did get to see two Humpback Whales breach. I turn on the HD Flip to try and catch them when they come up again, and while I did not happen to catch the whales on film, I do catch a stingray jumping. You can see it in the following vid at around 1:18.
So, at the end of the day we head back empty handed, but at least we got to drink a bunch of beer and have a good time hanging with friends. Another thing to be thankful for was that we were not around to hear everyone complain all day that there was no wind ;) At least we caught a bunch of beer!
You can see my burnt thumb in this video
Becky holds the only real actio of the day's fishing trip
When we got back, Becky took this cool picture of a dead lobster on the beach.
After that we got ready, and around 7 or 8pm we piled into a truck and headed down to Glen's for our final pizza bash.
Oops, the flash is off, let's do that again!
We have a ton of fun.
Becky hangs with Karol and Katie for a picture.
At one point, towards the end of the night, I even crawl up to the crows nest with a few buddies...mind you a little drunk....and I am sure scared Becky a bit.
"hangin out" in La Ventana in Glen's crows nest
And so that is it...the final day of our trip. Here is a final picture of a bunch of us after getting our luggage in Seattle. See you pskiter homies on the water!
So today is the last full day for Becky and I in La Ventana, in what has become our temporary little home, Casa Verde. We love this place!
All week at Casa Verde we left our doors either unlocked or just left the door wide open. Nothing was ever stolen, which is such a rare thing to find now days. It was great have a vacation from work and the daily grind, but also to escape the worry of dishonest people or thieves ruining our day. The house cleaners are practically David Webb's familia. Plus, kiteboarders in general are just honest and helpful people. No one steals! In fact we all retreive and take care of each others gear all the time. Further, all week long everyone's gear was just left laying around Casa Verde, either drying or just waiting to go out the next day.
Nothing ever disappeared! Each day all the decks and cubbies between rooms look something like this.
If you look at the picture above... and see the beautiful sky...well, that wasn't the sunny weather we got on our last day. In fact, it is super gloomy in the morning, not likely to burn off, and obviously the thermal winds will probably not kick in today.
Becky does grab some pictures of the yoga class since many mornings she participated. We were inspired by the morning yoga class and plan to offer yoga each morning some day when we open a kiteboarding resort of our own.
morning yoga on a cloudy morning
But even when it's cloudy out, there is still beauty to be found at Casa Verde.
I think that I mentioned many guys chose to sleep in full sized, two beds, real looking, teepees. David Webb puts up several near the beach during the peak of kiteboarding season. This allows him to host a bigger headcount at Casa Verde. Great for the pskiters so more of us could stay at the same place, but also good for revenue for David. Obviously Becky and I were taking notes and learning from David.
Believe it or not the teepees were actually pretty comfy inside while still being spoacious, although definitely not something Becky would be cool with. She likes her amenities!
However, die hard kiters that want a cheap room and don't mind sharing a public bathroom seemed to do just fine. This also inspires us to think about something cool for the die harders during the best month or two in our own resort. We shall need to put some thinking into this.
While we never got a chance to try this out, it is an Aztec Sweat Lodge aka a Sauna....David made it himself and it is super cool. It has a propane and burner on the back, outside the doom but built into the side of it and with a burner as well. It heats up rocks piled against a side of it in a stove like area. The inside heats way up.
I wish I had got the chance to sit in it. Also another easy but cool thing to consider fore someday in a place of our own
Anyways, after walking around trying to figure out what to do, I see Scotty walking as if he is on a mission. Scotty likes to fish so I ask him outright if he is going fishing. He says "yes" and so I ask outright to tag along. He said it would be cool for Becky and I both to come. We set a time for 10 minutes to be ready in meet in the front of Casa Verde and then we would all walk to the campoground to catch a local fishing charter. Fishing isn't known to be the best in early Feb...but we all like to fish. It will be about $30 each.
Becky is at Baja Joe's talking to her trainer about lessons and the weather. I rush on a bike to go get her in time for her to come and end up meeting her about half way on her way back.
I tell her the plan to catch a charter and she is under the same impression as me...let's go fishing!!! Neither one of us believe the wind will come up, even if others are still holdiong out hope.
Five minutes later Duncan, Scotty, Steve Anderson, Becky and I are walking to the campgrounds together. I stop along the way at the tienda and grab 16 beers for us to bring along.
Another 5 minutes from then we are on the water, cruising out, on our way for a great time fishing, amoungst other things.....
All week long at Casa Verde the words "hot springs" get tossed around quite a bit. Not only because the hot springs, just north of La Ventana, is the starting point location for doing a downwinder (read previous blog) but also because......well, who doesn't love sitting in some hot springs and relaxing? Everyone loves hot springs, especially so after a hard day of riding.
That being said, Monday night after dinner, feeling good and tired from the downwinder, seven of us decide to head to the hot springs to "dig" ourselves a natural Jacuzzi to soak in together. Kynan and I hop into the back of a pickup for the roughly 8 mile trip.
I say the word "dig" because the key to the hot springs is that you have to find them first, (most often by walking the shoreline and then digging your feet in by moving them back and forth until they start to sink, similar to what we have all done as children when at the beach. You have to do this until you find a "hot spot" that hopefully indicates a hot spring below) then after finding a hot spot, the hard part begins...you then have to dig down below the water table and create a pool that the hot water flows up into. Sounds easy doesn't it? Well, on a low tide it may be, but we get there during a high tide.
Kynan, who always seems to be the optimist, encourages us to start digging as it "will not really be all that hard" he says "to dig down through 4ft of sand to the water table", and then even deeper to create a pool to sit in and "relax".
Well, we dig about 4ft down and finally hit water. I wish I could tell you that the water was hot and then we all laid down and relaxed into the evening in the giant hole we dug...but it wasn't. The water was cold. We had misjudged the place to dig. FAIL!
This is me sitting is a 4ft hole with a cold water spring :)
So, Kynan starts walking up and down the beach looking for a hot spot positively determined that we sit in some hot springs before the night is up. Jeff and I join him in the search, and about 100 feet from out first hole, we find what appears to be warm water in the surf close to shore.
Kynan, being the optomist he is, starts digging down right away. Jeff soon joins him, while the rest of us stand around watching, still somewhat tired from the first go at digging ourselves a hot spring.
I eventually break down and start helping out by digging in short little "man I am out of shape" spurts. Mike, Jodi, and Lauren also all jump in and help from time to time. In not too long we hit the water table...and it is hot! Real hot!
We crack a few beers to celebrate using the bootle opener sewn into Jeff's board shorts. Yes, I am jealous and want a pair.
With not too much work (and by "not too much work" I mean less than 1/2 hour more digging time) we finally have a pool that reaches above shoulders...when laying down that is...otherwise it is no deeper than our ankles.
Kynan points out the "hot as shit" portion of our pool
Aww.... does it get any better than this?
As shallow as it is, it is extremely hot. It is almost unbearably hot, easily hot enough to hard boil an egg, so Kynan starts to create a canal that will allow the ocean waves to ocassionaly crash into the pool cooling it.
Kynan builds a canal
With the added cool water making the springs a bit more enjoyable I decide to do a bit more digging to make the pool deeper.
me digging the pool deeper
So, in shin deep warm water we hang for a while longer with our new found friends all the while enjoying the fruit of our spoils. Here is a final picture of our "hot springs" adventure and our new friends.
out. Here is a video of John Korn riding...crashing...while at the same time getting the worst possible advice from so called friends.
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