Windsurfing

If you want to get your waterstarts down, Corpus is the place. (And you're right--it's full of Coloradoans in the Spring.)

Actually, Corpus is the place for everything. Unless the water is up (it happens occasionally), in the area where everybody goes back and forth and back and forth in a rut, you can stand just about everywhere, so you can work on sail handling for a waterstart while standing instead of swimming. Being able to stand makes a HUGE difference and you can really build some skills and confidence.

And once you have that, you'll start working those jibes because the water is really flat, plus blowing one just means that you stand there and get re-situated and up and going again in just a few seconds. So you never delay jibing because you're trying to avoid falling in AGAIN and having to fly the sail while trying not to drown.

There's deep water farther out in the ship channel, and you can work on your deep water skills out there once you've got the stuff nailed in the shallow.

If that place were made of fresh water, it would be heaven. That salty humid air kills electronics with a vengeance, and every time we go there, we have to replace things when we get back to dry air. This year it was a watch and a laptop screen, my MP3 player is on life support, and one monitor revived itself after being in air conditioning for a couple of days, thank heaven.

We tried to sail in San Francisco once, but got skunked. Had the car loaded up and everything. That was a while back, and I think I would find it intimidating now, especially since I'm not accustomed to dealing with tides and barges, plus the increased number of kiters these days. Oh--Bird Island in Corpus doesn't allow kiters. Which is not to say there aren't a couple of local windsurfers there who make everybody's life miserable, but they can be avoided if you're willing to let them have their drag strip. It's not fair, but it's the price you pay.

We were in Hatteras for a little over a month. We first stayed at Frisco Woods, where you can allegedly sail from your RV. Well, sort of. But the launch kind of sucked, and I found the shallow water only closer to the shore, so no miles-long reaches for me.

We moved to a different RV park and had to drive to sail, and didn't find a place we really adored. Canadian Hole is mobbed and you have to go through a lot of traffic in deep choppy water to get out to where the water is generally shallow (but there are lots of deep sections, which I invariably find). I liked Salvo okay, but it has a very small launch and is popular with kiters. Bad combination, but once I get on the water I generally stay there for hours, so it was endurable.

I really think that Hatteras is best if you rent one of those big houses that is on a part of the bay that is shallow everywhere. Leave the sails rigged, and enjoy an uncrowded launch and easy sailing. Not really possible in an RV.

We still haven't ever sailed at South Padre. You can't stay on the beach there, unfortunately, so it's not as convenient as Corpus, but it's a lot prettier. But there are kiters there (can you tell I don't care for them?), although people claim they do a pretty good job of staying downwind. I sure hope so.

Maybe one day we'll get down there. But we never seem to be able to force ourselves out of Corpus.

Basically, I like shallow flat water, and the less testosterone the better. And if I can get those conditions out my front door, I'm really really happy. I like wind at 19-24 mph and my co-windsurfer likes it a little stronger, so if can have our house there we can each pick the time of day we like to sail. That constitutes very fine living in my book.