I will say it's a sport with many attractions!

Too bad more women aren't windsurfing around here. Glad she chose a waist harness.

The May issue of Windsurf downloaded today and sure enough-there is a Fanatic commercial inside starring the same babe-her name is Alice Arutkin btw. Nice helicopter view for the fans among us

Well lesson 4 & 5 are in the bank. For those of you out there that are stalking this site ( like I did! ) deciding to take lessons or not here's how it went. #4 - I decided it was time to get out of the 230l sand box and try on some bigger pants again. Bring me back that 180l! We had a steady cross breeze with a few gusts now and then further out off shore with mall 1-3' swells at times. The instructor worked on foot position again to get me to stand more upright while keeping the sail out at arms reach away from my body. I was leaning a little forward while trying to sheet in. I ended up having my arms bent more with the boom near my chest. It felt uncomfortable and a bit shaky at first until he had me shift my weight more to the back foot and try to lean back slightly. This made it easier to keep my front arm straight and tweak the boom with my back hand sheeting in. I was much more stable and it made it easier to feel the awesome power of the "breeze" after sheeting in giving me more stability balancing my weight against the breeze. The sea legs are getting much better on the 180 but the jibes and tacks are still very basic with this board. The 3' swells played havoc trying to tack or jibe to get back in. #5 - My thought for this lesson was to work on tack and jibe since the sheeting in and balance were much better after lesson 4. The wind was very gusty and unpredictable and made it tougher to stay sheeted in. Off shore swells were steady at 2-3'. I did try to work on tack and jibes but they were tough to execute off shore. It was more like the execution of me. I did mange to do more tacks than jibes but very shaky for the conditions. I will say my sea legs are getting much better. I had some real "Walenda" moments out there but managed to stay on the board! It seems the more I have to focus on the wind the less time I have to think about the board. One thing to never do is to look at your feet it's a "FAIL!" waiting to happen. After turning start looking at where you want to go.

Just dropped a few more pics. After our class yesterday we went to Hookipa. I'm not sure if any of you know who the blond haired guy with the yellow tshirt and orange sail is but he was a beast! He attacked the waves like no one else I've seen to this point. I took a good video of him and some of these pics. I also have some new of Matt Prichard who was there giving a lesson to someone. He rented a board to a parent of a couple of girls that were in my WS class that we ran into at Hookipa yesterday. Also dropped in a Fanatic pic.

I like the trail his board carves into the wave after he launches.

This is Timo Mullen. He is probably not famous internationally , but definitely a windsurfing celebrity in the UK-a Starboard/Severne team rider.

Garry Zack wrote: Well it seems they are teaching you the key, base body position in windsurfing also referred to as "figure 7". Believe me or not this picture of Shawna Cropas -windsurfing instructor and wife of Matt Pritchard /if I'm not mistaken/-has etched it into my memory

Lesson 6 at 9 today, I'll have to work on that figure 7 of mine! I have some good shots from Hookipa on Wed. that I need to crop when I get back. Every 30 minutes or so there was a set of 6 waves or so that were pretty awesome.

This is the one you should be doing Gary, the earlier one is more radical-for when you attempt to get planing. Just think Shawna and it will come to you naturally, thrust me