Ok, it had been a couple of years, and I desperately needed to re-tune my windsurfing skills. I gathered my best shred pal Hugh, his girl Sharon and my on-again off-again girlfriend Jes, and a few bolivars and headed south, back to the island of Margarita.

Pasko's gamble

Jes and I were batting .500 on the vacation success ratio. We had a fabulous trip to San Diego, and an absolute nightmare trip skiing.....How would this one go? The odds makers that knew us were having a party over this one. Money was changing hands and whispers abounded.

I had given Jes a single windsurfing lesson and she had excelled. That said, there's a big difference in sailing in 5 knots in local flat water and hanging out in a place where the only activity is windsurfing for two weeks.

The scenario was complicated by the fact that only Sharon was fluent in spanish, and she wasn't going to join us until the second week.

All this notwithstanding, cheap lodging and cheap food with plenty of wind is a no-lose situation, I packed my harness and we drove to Miami.

What's changed

We got to Casa Viento and Brie showed us our rooms. It was late in the season, and most of the restaurants in El Yaque were closed. Grabbing a bite to eat, it was apparent that El Yaque had hipped to the fact that the windsurfers were a captive audience and the prices of food had gone up quite a bit. It wasn't expensive, it's just last time I went you could get dinner and drinks for $5. This time dinner and drinks were $14......oh yeah, and I was paying for two...make that $28.
 

What hasn't

The wind. It was great for the majority of our trip even though it was the low season.

Sailed 9 out of 11 days with an average sail size of 6.0 (I'm 200 lbs).

Bets gone bad

I hadn't booked gear before heading down south. Casa Viento had a great package with room+gear lined up, but it was Hugh's assertion that we could probably negotiate something better when we got there. This turned out to be a slight mistake.

We got a good deal on gear from Vela (Kudos to the Vela staff), but it would have been cheaper to go with the room and gear package.

I didn't worry too much about this though, as the package was with Happy and they were quite busy, stocked with mostly Germans.
 
 

Casa Viento at a glance

Casa Viento was an attractive place and the landscaping was nice. Things that were working against them. The electric was out for the better part of the first 3 days of  our trip, thus the fans did not work. Jes and I were wondering why Hugh seemed so refreshed when we would stumble out of our rooms looking like drowned rats. We stepped into Hugh's and it was a good 10-15 degrees cooler with a gorgeous breeze blowing. We switched rooms.

After the first 2 sleepless/fanless nights, the room switch made all the difference in the world. Cooler temps brought smiles to our faces.

Throughout the stay, Brie the property manager was awesome. Just about everything we needed (Short of electricity) was taken care of with promptness, and I can recommend Casa Viento to anyone heading to Margarita on a budget.

Tomatoes && Cheese.....the breakfast of champions (Read: Gotta bring Powerbars)

The low season was working against us. When we arrived, the four of us were the only people in Casa Viento. Breakfast was scaled down accordingly. Typically breakfast would consist of bread, tomatoes and cheese, coffee, fruit, and some cereal. Depending on whether the market was open or not, these items were reduced in number.

The off-season was working stymieing us as there didn't appear to be many other places to eat for breakfast.

By the end of the trip it had become a bad joke about what we were having for breakfast. Jes looked longingly at me in the morning and intoned sincerely

    "Do you know what I'm craving?"

    I'd raise an eyebrow "Could it be tomatoes and cheese?"

    "Mmmm yeahh... How'd you know?"

Repeat that joke for about 11 days and you'll start to get the demented laughter that came from the two of us. Maybe we just got too much sun.

Most of the shops in El Yaque had limited hours and some were closed for the season. Mental note bring Powerbars and emergency food.

Jes's progress ... El Yaque, a beginners dream

With shallow water, unlimited gear trades, and a gentle breeze that built through the day, this was truly a beginners paradise.

Jes went from day one using a 2.8 meter sail on the widest thing we could drag to the beach sans hernia, to using a Xantos 285 and a 5.0 planing in the harness on day 14. Did I mention that she could waterstart on both tacks? It only took me about 6 months to get that far. As you progress through the frames, notice Jes moving from the yellow 2.8 to the 5.0 NR. (The grin on her face gets bigger as she goes as well)

Her enthusiasm grew by the day, as she would spend the morning hours in the building breeze, then get some sun and relax as I went out. The cheap rum drinks at Mike's didn't hurt either. Note: Although food got much more expensive, drinks were still quite cheap....and good.

Enter Sharon

At the end of week one, Sharon arrived and helped relieve my duties as head translator. That was fine with me as I was growing weary of butchering the Spanish language.

Sharon was a week behind Jes in the learning curve, but determination was on her side as she worked to catch up.

I knew that it was always a bad idea to teach your girlfriend how to windsurf, but it was working pretty good with me and Jes. (I had Hugh teach Jes the first day, just to be safe)

Hugh wasn't quite so lucky. At about day 3 of Sharon's visit, I was on the shore in the morning taking pictures of their lesson. All of a sudden, Sharon leapt through the waist deep water with a looping punch at Hugh, who seemed to be encumbered by laughter and thus a bit slow to duck. Sharon chased Hugh for about 20 feet, arms windmilling.

I asked him about this later.

    "Ummmm.....what was all that about?"

    "Sharon doesn't respond well to sarcasm as a teaching tool."

I grinned and let it drop.

Sharon had an unspoken competition thing going with Jes over sailing progress. Every time Jes would try more advanced equipment, Sharon would hop on something more advanced whether she was ready for it or not. Jes had a good weeks start, thus making things interesting. This situation and a little rum generated a great deal of amusement for Hugh and I as we encouraged the girls forward.
 

Progress

During our stay we took two trips to Coche. Coche was as beautiful as I remembered, but I fear that future buildings will somewhat diminish the close shore speed sailing. Both days I used a 6.0. The first day was really on and off, but the second was quite smooth. I managed to get my first successful body drag there, so I was pretty stoked. Monster speed runs in glass flat water, just 10 feet from dry sand. It was a rush.

Hugh was hitting more and more of his gibes and getting really dialed in.

Goals unreached

I had hoped to pull off a forward loop by the end of the trip, but came up a bit short. I had numerous attempts, but was having a hard time getting fast enough rotation and the timing correct. After one seriously brutal crash-down, Hugh asked me:  "Where you going for a loop or just trying to see how hard you can wipe out?"

There's a pic of me in a later frame with my back to the camera. That's  not a shadow, it's one big bruise from the bottom of my lat to the top of my shoulder and across half my back.

Mental note gotta take a loop lesson.

Off Skintastic sucks

I brought a few types of bug spray to ward of the mosquitos. While waiting for Jes, I noticed that the mosquitos were hardly dissuaded from my legs with the off skintastic. My legs looked like the AYCE buffet at the Barr household.

I went for plan B.

Ben's Max 100 formula (From campmor.com) 96% deet. Sure you might twitch when you put a few drops on, but the mosquitos will not go near you.  I highly recommend it.

Sunscreen review

After 11 days, it was obvious. Comparing coppertone greasless 45+ waterproof and the Pink waterbabies 45+ waterproof, there was no comparison. Every time I'd put on the Coppertone greaseless, I'd come in slightly burned. The waterbabies sunscreen stayed on all day and worked like nothing else.
 

Post sailing warmdown

I committed to doing 1000 crunches every night after sailing to compensate for not working out (Hugh's idea)  I did go to Porlamar with Brie and lifted, but it was only one day in two weeks. I ended up alternating 1000 every other day and 600 crunches on the slow days. I also took runs from 15 minutes to 30 minutes every other day.

The regimen was just about perfect. At the end of the day when Jes was getting ready to go out, I'd start the sit-ups and we'd end up ready to go at close to the same time.
 

Why you should care

Although I was sore from sailing , the workouts actually helped me keep going. Typically on my windsurfing vacations, my lower back tends to stiffen and gets progressively worse during the trip. The sit-ups and crunches did wonders to loosen the back up, and the stronger abs were helping my endurance on the water.

The worst part of the workout was actually forcing myself to get going after a long wonderful day of sailing.
 

Dining in El Yaque

Lunch was always at Mike's as they were super convenient and made excellent tuna salads. Also they were close to the only show in town.

I can safely say that I didn't have a bad dinner in El Yaque.  The restaurants in general were quite tasty. That said only Gabi's BBQ provided 'enough' food.  By the end of the day I was far less concerned with presentation and delicacy as I was quantity.  Miguel && Gabi understand the american appetite and they do it well. The food was so good we'd often go back-to-back nights. Miguel and Gabi were as warm and hospitable as I'd remembered.  At one of the restaurants after finishing our entree's, Hugh and I ordered a large pizza for dessert.

Dining in Porlamar

Much cheaper in general and more diverse in selection, but it was a cab ride to get there (~$15 each way), and after factoring in the time factor involved, we'd more often than not eat in El Yaque.

Windsurfing weight loss

My dinner gorging and happy hour binging notwithstanding, I stepped on the scale when I got back home, and did some quick math.  I had run an 2200 calorie/day deficit while on vacation. While at Casa Viento I talked to a doctor who mentioned that he comes down about three times a year to lose weight. Interesting, I was just having too much fun to notice.
 

Friends

Something about the low season helped foster was a great sense of camaraderie. We made many friends while down there and it would seem that we got to know and like just about everyone in the area. A shout out to Mike,  Gay, Mike, Raymond, Jennifer, Robby, Juan, Bernardo and I'm sure that I'm missing a few from this list.

Von Wingnuts

The uncrowded time of year was a blast to sail in, but it was not without it's own perils. These perils had a name: Germans. I will state categorically that I do not like sailing near them or them sailing near me. I was somewhat perturbed when I was instructing Jes in waist deep water in  a seriously uncrowded section of the beach, only to have a kamikaze German wide-eyed, white knuckled, and on the brink of disaster come blasting by less than 8 feet away. This kind of thing happened over and over with different faces on different boards. I was wondering if it was a group thing that they decided to take out way more sail than they could handle and buzz people while trying to not-quite spinout on a tail walk.

The other people who spent a lot of time on the inside voiced similar sentiments.

When I was on the water sailing it was far less a problem, as I would simply steer clear.
 

In retrospect

After seeing the attention Jes garnered while trying on bathing suites at Vela, I'm fairly certain that I could have got a better gear rental rate if I could have convinced Jes to parade up and down the beach wearing Vela-wear. I suggested this to her half seriously and she grinned, swatted at me, then conceded the point.
 

The local kids

At the end of the day it was great to kick back and watch the locals tear it up. The kids were especially fun to watch. They would really  put on a show when I'd wade out and take pictures. One handed body drags, loops, vulcans...etc. These kids would crash, burn, tear it up and come in smiling. It was a blast to watch.

The right idea

Raymond was a Seattle based-Austrian-resident med student. He and his wonderful wife Jennifer were also staying at Casa Viento. I saw Raymond heading down the beach with some hacksaw blades that he had borrowed from a local shop.

"What's up?"

"That big German guy renting at Happy crushed his ring finger between the boom and board, I'm going to help him out....He'd have been fine, but the finger's swelling and the ring won't come off. We may have to cut the ring off. The guy is in a lot of pain."

Turns out there was an American Osteo-specialist renting at Happy, but when he glanced at the German's crushed hand, he only found time to joke, then head back to sailing.

"Yeah, we may have to take that finger off."

Raymond was disgusted at the other docs callous "I'm on vacation" approach saying "Hey, I can help this guy out, and it will only take a few minutes"

Mondo bonus-karma points to Raymond for having the 'right-idea'
 

Will I return?

You bet.  This year I have a Maui trip planned, but if I get the chance, there's not really a better place to tune up than Margarita.