Monday March 21st

            Another sweet tropical awakening here in Margarita!  A great nights sleep, and a nice early morning hammock ride to top it off!  The birds go nuts in the morning, and make a chorus of song to be heard.  Nice slow rise to the day!

            Breakfast is again so amazing!  A guy could get used to this type of treatment!  Plenty at the buffet to choose from and the girls seem to love to feed me with their cooking!  ‘Another omelet today Timo?’ is the kind question.  I respond, again amazed at the feeling of home, with a stupefied, ‘SI! Claro que Si!’  I might be gaining weight this year with all the amazing breakfasts!

            I head to the center, for some more office work and photo fun.  Even got there before 11!  Some fun ‘workin’ in the office, then I saw the afternoon wind was starting to kick!  Lot’sa 5M size sails going out!      It was time to get some good action shots, and survey the moving mogul field of waves, for my ride later.

            The wind provided some awesome action to be captured!  With the good steady wind, all the local and client sailors had plenty to work with, and the photo session was a blur of steady amazing action shots all around me!

After some time shooting, I saw Ricardo Campenello (sp?) heading my way, and in an instant, he was airborne, flipping and spinning, some, flaca-spock-thingy, 15ft away from my lens!

  I wish my camera had a faster rapid fire shooting setting!  It happened so fast, I got maybe three shots throughout the sequence!  He is so amazing; I guess that’s why they crowned him #1!!!  Too cool to be on the same water as the pros, and witness the skill a human can achieve!  Photo Gallery here.

I filled the memory stick quite fast, and waded back to shore for my turn in the fun stuff!  I selected a JP 98 lt stick, and a 5.7M sail, suited up, and hit the spray!  WOW!  It was the most filled in it has been since I got here!  Steady strong wind, and some awesome swell as well!  I raced around chasing other Vela sails, ripping jumps one after another, and nailing several jibes both inside and outside!  Much more tiring when you don’t have to stop at a blown jibe!

            Shared the stoke with several others, hootin and hollerin as we passed each other!  So fun to sail with friends to amplify the fun factor!  Just sailing with others and trying to keep up is such a rush sometimes!  Not a race, but every time, you still endorphin rush out like it is one!  Makes the next jump seem twice as high!

            Some of my best jumps today also!  The flight skills are all coming back now!  I feel so controlled in the air again!  The sweet ramps make for some excellent bebop-hop-pop smattering of nice short 2-4ft air-rides, followed by the eventual sharp, large, launch ramp!

These faces just beg for slashing!  And I comply happily with a quick turn psyco-bash jump move into and off the wall of water!  Whoo! Hooo!  Yeee! Hawww!  Flying with the shore birds now!!  Let me just float here a moment!  Time and space, reality blurs, and the landing is smooth and into a full plane ready for the next meeting with mistress wind!

            Full afternoon session, and I was toast, content, and a big grin on my face!  As was every other sailor I saw that afternoon!  What a great day!

            After the après surf session at the beach bar, we all went to get ready for dinner.  I stopped off to check out Mary Luz and Tito’s pad, to look at a laptop issue.  Very nice place, but Pobre Tito!  He was training for a kitesurf competition, and blew out a strap on his board, came down on the broken screw, and gashed his foot!  Stitches and all, just 4 days before the event!  Send healing energy people!

            David and I met for a meal at Mare Mare restaurant, and feasted on some awesome pizza and dorado, sharing the days fun thru our stories!  So much fun for the day, we decided to make it an early night, and I headed back to my home away from home, Casa Rita.  Felt good after a hard day of sailing, to hit that sweet bed!  More enjoyment tomorrow!