Aloha All, I’m finally back to Cabo Verde after a long stint in the Canaries. I can hear my son, Noah ,yelling to Easy, his dog, and everything is just right. This is a far cry from the brutal dog-fights of Fuerteventura.

Once again, teaming up with Micah Buzianis during the Fuerte event I had one of  the sport’s best leading the way and it always makes it easier to step up my game when in the presence of great people. Micah and I were on a strict regiment of 7 am alarm clock, out of bed for some morning supplements and water and  a quick stretch/ warm-up and off to the breakfast buffet to battle the hordes of German tourists, PWA crowd and French kite speedsailors in hopes of getting some sustenance before the daily grind. Our early arrival to the beach consisted of prepping our rigs and a quick test of the day conditions , fin tests for that day and a couple test runs off the start line to see where was favored.

Although the Furte event was only 5 days long. We sailed 14 rounds of slalom, some of which were very long courses and we sailed in way underpowered 7.6 to overpowered 5.9. It was a test of endurance, skill and nerves. One of which, Antoine Albeau once again proved to be the best at. Micah was sailing very consistently and was the one person really giving Antoine a run  for his money, but he broke a bone in his leg from an injury which occurred in Pozo. Tough break for Micah as will also miss Turkey.  Bjorn Dunkerbeck, although not as consistent as his former glory was still a madman and you didn’t want him behind you when fighting for qualification.  An sailed hard for a 2nd place finish. The doctor of consistency, Kevin Pritchard , proved his worth by sailing smoothly to a 3rd place finish.

On the 14th ( last) race of the event, Kevin, Ross Williams and Ben Van Der Steen were basically all within a point of each other and whoever did the best in the last race would qualify. Ross’ nerves got the better of him and he went from first to last in  the semifinal on a missed jibe and thus dropped to 5th. Big Benny bumbled his start in the final and the doctor, KP, once again shimmied into a 3rd for that final and thus a 3rd for the event.

For myself , the emotional rollercoaster of slalom racing is still taking some time to get accustomed to. I think twice I was in 2nd in final and fell on jibes and dropped to last in the final. Kevin and I crashed into each other on one start of a final and I came last and Antoine and I crashed on one start and I came last. All those mistakes aside, I had some solid races , got to learn more about the subtleties of mast track placement, different fins for different conditions and racing strategies. I had some of my best starts ever and at the end of the roller coaster I ended up a respectable 9th place.

Fuerteventura’ a great place to go windsurf and we had a good time. No matter what the up’s an downs of pro-windsurfing, anybody that’s out there on the water is extremely blessed to do so. One final note,  a special thanks to Dirk Doppenberg, our Dutch race man, who spent a lot of his time sharing his intricate knowledge of the TR-4’s with me and also was the guy who stepped it up when Micah got hurt and helped Micah pack all his stuff the way it needed to be done… Thanks Dirk!

Aloha, Josh

Photo : PWA/Carter