Christmas Eve fun at Edisto Beach

We had a rather stormy Christmas Eve afternoon at the beach down the block from our Edisto house today. That was a delight to son James the windsurfer dude and granddaughter Ayla. She now stands on her little plastic boat, holds her hands out, and says, "Sheew sheew sheew".


Landing in the surf looked a little tense...at least to me it did.


I took some video. James edited it, replaced the wind noise, and put it on his blog.

Windsurfing the Columbia River Gorge and Bridging the Cultural Gorge

We went to the Columbia River Gorge. I sailed in it. That confers a certain amount of status since it is the premiere nukin' wind spot of the planet. Of course I sailed in an uncommonly light wind, using my longish floaty board that I can tack. I never got very far into harnesses, foot straps and carving jibes even when I was at the peak of my game about 20 years ago.


Me


Son James near the event center. I taught him everything I knew; then he took it from there. He has videos of the same outing taken from his water proof video camera that straps to his head.


More James, this time at Mary Hill park about 40 miles east of the event center


When we began packing up our gear after our last evening at Mary Hill park we passed a native American family grilling their dinner. I made some cheery remarks like, "Mmmmmm, smells really good. This elicited some chuckles. Just a little later as we started loading our stuff a little girl from the family came over and invited us to join them and share their Bar B Q. I thanked her effusively and declined politely, explaining that we had to get back to Hood River. I didn't have much time to think. I figured we didn't have much to contribute and I didn't know how much they had to spare. Also dear wife had been excited all day about a restaurant in Hood River where she wanted to eat supper.

After we all got under way we each confessed that we wished we had accepted. I felt like an oaf for declining. If you only listen to the news you would think there is nothing but squabbling between native Americans and European Americans over who gets the salmon, what can't be built in native cemetaries, whether to dam a river, etc. In this un-newsworthy moment total strangers extended themselves and invited us to break bread with them because we appeared hungry. Truly for us Americans, notwithstanding diverse origins, there is much more that unites us than divides us. ...like food and family!

Fun on the beach at home in Olympia, WA

My son James is visiting us from Florida this week. Wednesday we gathered at our beach access on Eld Inlet of Puget Sound. Here are some pictures that we'll remember fondly because we plan to sell this nice family home and move to the Carolinas.

Wednesday was warm with no wind so we did Stand Up Paddling or SUPing as it is called. Here's James contemplating his first SUP.


Apparently we were very puzzling to the harbor seals because they usually popped up to investigate as you will see in the following pictures.


Here's my friend Rob doing his first SUP.


Wife Catherine has great balance and never even got her hair wet. I can't say the same for myself.


James and Catherine.


James and friend

The next day (Thursday) was very windy. No SUPing for us but James had a real "woo hoo" afternoon windsurfing. See our videos on his blog: SUP Windsurfing

Here's a glimpse of his fun on the water.

Old dogs can't even do OLD tricks!

I just went windsurfing in the Columbia River gorge…barely. Decades ago in the infancy of the windsurfing sport (when I first did this) sailing in the gorge was considered a badge of honor. You didn't have to excel, just survive. My son James prodded me there this time. He's a black belt windsurfer. Well I guess it's not a belt; it's a harness.

To be honest, in the heyday of my youthful windsurfing skill, nearly 20 years ago at about age 45, I was really a long board light wind sailor. My trips to the gorge could be easily counted on two hands and my successful jibes (the essential short board U-turn) could probably be counted on one hand. At least I could awkwardly water start, an essential skill for one who falls on his jibes.

Back to the present. When I arrived at the "Event Center" beach to attempt my sailing I had already make a bad decision by drinking too much coffee. This amplified my jitters which were already strong from fear of death or (worse yet) damaging some expensive equipment. I knew I was off to a bad start when my hand slipped off the rubber bootie that I was tugging on and socked myself in the groin almost causing me to fall off the stump I was sitting on. Somehow I mounted my inappropriately long skinny old Mistral Pandera board and made it out through the other crazy windsurfers and kite boarders to the middle where there was some real chop. Of course I fell off in my tack but then I somehow managed to remount with a rope start. I steamed back in to shore feeling relieved about missing all the other kiters and windsurfers until I hit an invisible submerged sand bar and broke off my fin screw.

I thought I was off the hook but unfortunately I found another fin screw and (with James' urging) made repairs with trembling hands. When I was done, I looked out and counted 15 kite boarders and 10 windsurfers slashing through the area where I proposed to sail. That was it for me; I didn't want to hurt them. My vision of myself was like one of those metal balls in a pin ball machine; round, stupid, totally at the mercy of the laws of physics and highly likely to collide with any of several colorful objects in my trajectory. I spent the rest of the day reading a book and snapping some photos of James.

I felt bad that I kind of weenied out. My best excuse, advanced age, was shot down when I saw that there were quite a few other wrinkled old prunes out there doing a good job of it. I do aspire to freshen my skills a bit in some less intimidating venues. Here are some pictures of James, not me.

We also did some hiking on the flanks of Mt. Hood on our final day in the vicinity. Here are some pictures of that. With all of these pictures, click to see an enlargement. There are also more pictures of these adventures on James' blog.