Windsurfing at Maryhill, awesome day

Yesterday, wind 30+ mph, gusting close to 40 according to the wind monitor. Check out the photos and shaky video below (hard to hold the camera still in the wind)if you wonder why I'd go windsurfing in the Columbia River gorge, near the Stonehenge replica. How's that David?

Where's blogfish? Windsurfing the gorge.

Maryhill is one of my favorite gorge windsurfing sites. I've probably windsurfed there at least 100 days in my life, it has a nice launch and big swells when the wind gets up over 25 mph. It also has my favorite camping in the Columiba gorge: home of famous big winds thanks to routine westerly flow that gets funneled up the river channel through the mountains.

I was a bit tense diving right in after no windsurfing for 3 years, but everything turned out alright. Except the skin on my hands, now a bit torn up. I'm blown away twice, once by the wind gusts and again by David and Pepijn for calling my location within minutes. Nobody got the 4.2 reference, though, that's a sail size.

That's tuk-tuk rigged and ready in front of Stonehenge. Tuk-tuk is the family carpool minivan moonlighting as a replica of the noble Fred, my old E-150 Ford windsurf van that saved my life when he was viciously totalled getting t-boned by a stinking new red camaro going way too fast on a highway (thanks to an old guy crossing in the way). I was sitting still at a stop sign and that Camaro pushed me 15 feet sideways, pushing my driver's side door in 2 feet. The Camaro stopped bending the van and started pushing it when it reached the beloved I-beam. I smile when I see the "built Ford-tough" commercial on tv. Walked away from that one--the Camaro driver was not so lucky, needed jaws of life and hospitalization. Whoa.

tuk-tuk is no match for the Vanagon WRX tres arboles, but it does the job. Now for the gusty and lusty gorge wind video:

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