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Postcard No 12 - The Gorge
We have now sailed at North America's best windsurfing spots - Baja and the Gorge. I've got to say that the Gorge is not what we were expecting. Windsurfing is big here and the standard of sailing is very high. The local industry has a lot of street presence and has carved out quite a niche. Hood River reminded us of a small ski town for windsurfing. The Gorge is a huge, with many sailing spots; however, the need to cough up $5 for parking, tagged with toll bridges to get to the Washington side was hard to swallow - in fact so hard we tried cheating the system until we found out the fine is $US128! The most popular brands on the water are Sailworks and Windwing, with most of the international brands conspicuously absent. The sailing is also quite different being fresh water, large choppy swells and barges to watch out for. After sailing so much in the sea, this fresh water took a bit of getting used to. There are some guys that are slapping down all the big freestyle moves, but it was the number of girls that was most impressive, slipping in the odd spock and loop too. We enjoyed our time in the Gorge and travelling up the California coast. We checked out most of the Cali spots on the way up, but just couldn't catch up with the wind. At every spot the answer was "you should have been here yesterday"... yeah right! But Jalama looked like a great spot, San Francisco's Crissy Field looked cool, Arroya Laguna we could not find, we skipped Waddell, which is apparently over-run by T-baggers, and Davenport is just too far into the Great White shark breeding triangle for our liking. Our pick on Cali would be Jalama, a cool little camp ground on the water's edge that has a shop that sells Jalama burgers that are world famous in Cali. Burger and chips on the beach after a days wave sailing... this spot has style! In all a great trip and it makes you realise just how good we have got it in NZ - it is world class. But for consistency, warmth, a slow kicked back attitude, full-time on the water action, you can't beat Maui. Next update, Pacasmayo, Peru. Will the fabled longest lefty in the world turn it on for us? Rock on everyone. Leland and Carmen out.
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