9/23 BICD, 7.5m sail, 117L board

[JimSouthwick]

That's DCIB backwards, in case you hadn't guessed. The wind came up about 3, just as Craig predicted, BUT FROM THE WRONG DIRECTION. As everyone around here knows, DC rarely gets N wind, and when it does, it's unsailable. But the trees outside my window were starting to go crazy, so I decided to have a look at the cam at IB. When I first got on, I saw what appeared to be sandbars where there had been none only yesterday. How could that be? Zooming in, I discovered that the "sandbars" were actually areas of glassy water that were reflecting an image of the surrounding hills. Not a good sign as far as wind is concerned! Went back to answering emails. But the wind was clearly getting stonger! Took another look at the cam, and this time instead of sandbars there were small swells in the bay and definite whitecaps in the channel beyond the island. Looked about the same when I got down there. Getting out looked like it was going to involve a bit of slogging, but the wind in the channel looked worth it. About the time I was unrolling my sail, George arrived. He wondered whether the wind might be better at Sailboat, and drove down to check it out. He reported less wind but bigger swells. Getting out did, indeed, involve a bit of slogging, but once beyond the shadow from the Island, the wind was more than enough for a 7.5. Kind of disorienting having everything reversed, beating upwind toward BarbedWireBeach and broad reaching from there back to the island. Quit before the wind did. As I was derigging, I noticed a lone kiter rocketing along to leeward of BarbedWire (Ralph, I'm guessing.) Best N wind session I've ever had at DC!

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