Windsurfing
I was wondering how many fellow RV’rs and rv.net enthusiasts also have the windsurfing bug? I would be interested in hearing about, and seeing (pics) of, places you have been and how you outfit your ...
Forum Discussion
> For those not wanting the hustle and bustle of
> Hatteras, there is good windsurfing to the south
> on Ocracoke.
If you go in April, there's no hustle OR bustle in Hatteras. Except at the windsurfing launches, so the Ocracoke launch in your photos looks wonderful.
Did you make it to Corpus? We went for two weeks at the end of November. The Fall wind isn't as consistent as the Spring wind--it's mostly front-driven. People who were there earlier than we were were disappointed, but we sailed 10 days in our two weeks. Some big norther days, quite a few nice 20mph days, and a couple of light wind days to just go futz around on the board.
We went south from there and made a stop in the Rio Grande Valley to go to the dentist in Mexico (I highly recommend this), and we're currently testing the waters in South Padre Island.
Note that "Padre Island" and "South Padre Island" are two completely different places, 200 miles apart. "Padre Island" is by Corpus, and that's where Bird Island Basin is. "South Padre Island" is a town way down at the southern tip of Texas.
Unlike Bird Island, you can't camp where you launch. We're staying at Andy Bowie County park, which is on the north end of town. The launch is two miles north of the park. It's not a huge commute but it's not a roll-out-of-bed-and-go-sailing-if-the-mood-strikes-you situation, either, and you have to load your equipment up every day.
The RV park is a converted parking lot--they added RV hookups and drew longer lines for the parking spaces.
It's a princely $30/night. There's a 600-space county park (Isla Blanca) at the south end of town, which is a "real" RV park. It fills with winter Texans, has activities like line dancing, etc. It's $35/night, but the weekly and monthly rates are the same as Andy Bowie. There's much more ambiance down there, but it adds five more miles to the commute. Then again, you go right by Whataburger, which is a plus.
There's also a KOA right by Isla Blanca at the southern end of the island. And you can boondock on the gulf side of the beach, but you're driving on sand and have to worry about that, plus tides.
The windsurfing launch people use is called the "North Flats."
Here's the view looking south toward town; there's nothing north of here.
The North Flats is on private land, so you have to become a member of the windsurf club to use it: $15/month, or $25/year. They have kiters there and everybody is supposed to stay separated, with the kiters downwind of the windsurfers. But kiters doing long downwinders come through the area, and others like to push the "downwind of the red buoy" rule. I hate mixing it up with kiters, so this is a negative for me. Bird Island doesn't allow kiters at all.
However, the water at SPI really is waist deep until you go a couple of miles out. And it's flatter than even Bird Island. In 30 mph wind, there was just a little bit of chop. It's amazing. And the wind isn't swirly at all near the shore, unlike Bird Island, so it's a great place to work on your fin-first skills.
Notice the flags are still straight sideways at sunset.
The conditions are so friendly I'm not sure what it will do for building skills, but it will definitely build confidence.
I will note, however, that there are a lot of weeds, and they're different from the stringy ones at Bird. These are much thicker and seem to be barbed, so they really stick to your fin. There's a guy here who sells a special shape of weed fin out of a shed--sort of a weed/wave with a severe rake at the very top. I'm using a regular pointed weed fin (like for Bird Island) and it's been doing okay lately, although when we first got here I'd pick up a whole haystack of weeds on a reach. Fortunately, it's shallow so you can just hop off and clear the fin and get going again, but a lot of the time you don't notice it until you're screaming into a jibe and stall, and realize it's too late.
So some sort of weed fin is a must, and a special one may be necessary.
> Hatteras, there is good windsurfing to the south
> on Ocracoke.
If you go in April, there's no hustle OR bustle in Hatteras. Except at the windsurfing launches, so the Ocracoke launch in your photos looks wonderful.
Did you make it to Corpus? We went for two weeks at the end of November. The Fall wind isn't as consistent as the Spring wind--it's mostly front-driven. People who were there earlier than we were were disappointed, but we sailed 10 days in our two weeks. Some big norther days, quite a few nice 20mph days, and a couple of light wind days to just go futz around on the board.
We went south from there and made a stop in the Rio Grande Valley to go to the dentist in Mexico (I highly recommend this), and we're currently testing the waters in South Padre Island.
Note that "Padre Island" and "South Padre Island" are two completely different places, 200 miles apart. "Padre Island" is by Corpus, and that's where Bird Island Basin is. "South Padre Island" is a town way down at the southern tip of Texas.
Unlike Bird Island, you can't camp where you launch. We're staying at Andy Bowie County park, which is on the north end of town. The launch is two miles north of the park. It's not a huge commute but it's not a roll-out-of-bed-and-go-sailing-if-the-mood-strikes-you situation, either, and you have to load your equipment up every day.
The RV park is a converted parking lot--they added RV hookups and drew longer lines for the parking spaces.
It's a princely $30/night. There's a 600-space county park (Isla Blanca) at the south end of town, which is a "real" RV park. It fills with winter Texans, has activities like line dancing, etc. It's $35/night, but the weekly and monthly rates are the same as Andy Bowie. There's much more ambiance down there, but it adds five more miles to the commute. Then again, you go right by Whataburger, which is a plus.
There's also a KOA right by Isla Blanca at the southern end of the island. And you can boondock on the gulf side of the beach, but you're driving on sand and have to worry about that, plus tides.
The windsurfing launch people use is called the "North Flats."
Here's the view looking south toward town; there's nothing north of here.
The North Flats is on private land, so you have to become a member of the windsurf club to use it: $15/month, or $25/year. They have kiters there and everybody is supposed to stay separated, with the kiters downwind of the windsurfers. But kiters doing long downwinders come through the area, and others like to push the "downwind of the red buoy" rule. I hate mixing it up with kiters, so this is a negative for me. Bird Island doesn't allow kiters at all.
However, the water at SPI really is waist deep until you go a couple of miles out. And it's flatter than even Bird Island. In 30 mph wind, there was just a little bit of chop. It's amazing. And the wind isn't swirly at all near the shore, unlike Bird Island, so it's a great place to work on your fin-first skills.
Notice the flags are still straight sideways at sunset.
The conditions are so friendly I'm not sure what it will do for building skills, but it will definitely build confidence.
I will note, however, that there are a lot of weeds, and they're different from the stringy ones at Bird. These are much thicker and seem to be barbed, so they really stick to your fin. There's a guy here who sells a special shape of weed fin out of a shed--sort of a weed/wave with a severe rake at the very top. I'm using a regular pointed weed fin (like for Bird Island) and it's been doing okay lately, although when we first got here I'd pick up a whole haystack of weeds on a reach. Fortunately, it's shallow so you can just hop off and clear the fin and get going again, but a lot of the time you don't notice it until you're screaming into a jibe and stall, and realize it's too late.
So some sort of weed fin is a must, and a special one may be necessary.
