Windsurfing

Today I tried windsurfing for the first time. It's a lot of fun, but also very tiring. It took us about 45 minutes just to assemble the sail, tie the appropriate knots, and get all the equipment ready. Then the grad student who has windsurfed before demonstrated to us while me and another grad student went out on kayaks. It didn't look so hard watching someone else windsurf, but it was really hard when I tried at first. There's an extra rudder added to the board so it was much steadier than a regular surf board. The sail rests on top of the water, and I had to pull on a string to lift the sail up. Once it's up, I had to maintain my balance and hold on the the sail, without being blown off the board. When a wind came and hit the sail, the sail either gets pushed away from me or towards me, and the pressure was really strong. I fell a lot just trying to get the sail up, and once it was up, I couldn't keep my balance for too long. After many attempts, I finally got a few successful runs. The direction of my sail was just right and the wind blew me forward. I was going so fast I saw the water splitting apart at the tip of the board. Felt so accomplished. Eventually I got the hang of it, but still couldn't figure out how to adjust the sail to control the board's direction. I'm going to windsurf again tomorrow afternoon, so maybe I can work on that.

Taken with my phone. Me trying hard to maintain my balance without the rudder.