Got wind?

The windsurfing conditions up here in north bay have been a little dodgy in the early spring with most of the action happening along the coast down in Santa Cruz county... until this week. Check out the surge that hit Crissy Field this week... usually you can count the number of times per year it gets this windy on one hand. Sort of reminds me of sailing in the Gorge, except that the surface conditions when it gets windy here are very different from the Gorge. In the Gorge when it gets super windy, you get these big smooth swells that form in the section of the river with the most current, sometimes even breaking. Here when it gets super windy we get this chop that feels like it almost rattles your dental fillings loose. Thursday when this wind hit I was on my smallest sail and was still getting pushed around pretty good, gusts were in 40s. Friday was more manageable, felt much more in control and the wind seemed pretty consistent, so I spent most of my time sailing on the ocean swells up under the GG bridge. Fun. Saturday I took a long hard look at OB for windsurfing, but it just didn't look fun... lots of close-out type shore pound with very few surfable looking waves, so I decided to do Crissy again... another fun day of nice easy 5.0 sailing with clean ramps for lots of port-side jumping. Today me and AP are heading down to Santa Cruz to hang w/ the Clapp family and I'm also hoping to get at least 2 seshs at Dport (today and tomorrow). If Dport works out it will be a good haul for the weekend... 3 days strong wind bump & jump & 2 days of wave sailing!!

Namaste!

Where do riots breakout when a movie actor passes away of old age? Where do camels and elephants still serve as part of the work force? Where do huge Brahma bulls wander around and hang out side by side w/ people going about their daily routines? Its the same place where the wealthiest of wealthy rub shoulders with people who suffer thru their daily existence, not really sure where their next meal comes from... and in the background to this is the everpresent essence of jasmine. Of course we are talking about India.

Mao knows best

What a great trip... I hit all my biz objectives and AP had a great first trip to China. Wish we could have had a little more time to get off the beaten path as most of the things we did were activities I'd done multiple times already, that said, I think it was a pretty incredible experience for AP and I got a ton of fulfillment from watching her interact in a completely foreign environment.

As they say a photo is worth a thousand words, so I'm going to keep this short... here is the first set of photos, these are all from the Forbidden City in Beijing... photo credit to my favorite photographer, AP... http://www.flickr.com/photos/byana/sets/72057594094522808/

Tomorrow we leave for India...