Rio Vista, 7/31-8/3 4.7, 5.2, 7.4

[DimitriMilovich]

Got three great days at Rio Vista on the Sacramento River. Blissful sailing in yer shorts w/barefeet. Haven't done that for decades it seems. Plenty o' wind and outrageous fresh corn on the cob and fruit from the local produce lady. Good camping at Brannon Isle SP. Tay and Mattie got some good days as well. Mattie's starting to get her midriver waterstarts and even invented a new move (for her) called "capulting", or flying through the air upside down hooked in. Came up smiling, though. Amazing to see her planing on a 3.3 when I'm on a 6.7. How'd it be to weigh 100 lbs?

Big Kite fest/Barbque from Naish one day. A gazillion kites out.

Also saw a couple of the local SF Bay Formula racers out on 9.8s when I was on a 6.7. Fantastic watching them go upwind and then straight down the river. I mean straight down river, like a wind angle of about 150+ degrees. Could not believe how efficient their sailing was. And I used to think I could go up and down wind. I could see the sail twist on the downwind run was maybe 60-75 degrees from head to boom. Fully powered! One guy must of covered two miles down and then the same back upwind in the time it took me to walk about 500 yds with Mattie. Talked with them afterwards and looked at their gear. Big shiny new NP RX-4 (?) big double-surface luff sails, custom deluxe Formula boards and GIANT custom carbon race fins from New Zealand, of all places. Huge gear lust arose until I realized that we really don't have any lakes big enough to justify that kind of high speed yachting expense with the exception of Utah Lake or Lake Mojave. Still, that sail was soooo shiny and shapely. (sigh)

There was also an amazing sighting of the elusive Kent Forrest, former Utah icesailor and frequent borrower of my gear. I had the pleasure of seeing the disbelief on his face as I tried to dump my windsurfing gear on top of his inflated kite before he recognized me. Ha Ha. He's gone over to the dark side, of course, but it was great to see him all the same. Many years ago Kent and I used to cut out at lunch and meet at his house to play Wolfenstein on his 286 machine. Took two of us at the keyboard and mouse to play the damn game, convulsed with hysterics the whole time. Ah, life used to be so simple...