Well, we’ve been off the grid for a few days. Life without cell phones and internet is really good, especially when you fill that time with sessions! With life this simple, and since we’re offshore with no police, we live by a simple set of 5 rules:
REAL BVI 2010 : International Rules and Regulations
1. Sessions Before Schedules
2. Session Reports at 9am and 1pm Daily
3. Evening Cool Downs at 9pm Nightly
4. Finish your Drink!
5. There is No Tomorrow…..
Our trip began out of The Moorings base on January 14th with a 9pm get together at the Moorings Bar to go over the trip plan and to meet all of the REAL BVI clients. The Moorings has just completed a refit on their entire facility and it is first class with a new meet and greet center, new bar and restaurant (now 2 of each on site) and a new spa. All of this adds to the already professional customer service and the smiles and greetings we always receive from the ladies at the counter and the guys on the dock.
Sessions kicked off right out of the blocks with well overhead day of surfing in Puerto Rico at Wilderness on our way down to Tortolla . It was so good, we surfed from 6:30am to 11am straight, then again from 4pm until dark! We pulled out 2 new Stretch customs for this session – a 7’4 S8 Semi-Gun and a 9’0 Round Pin High Performance Longboard. Both of these boards are quads and both put BIG smiles on Jason and Trip’s faces! We even got to meet up with Brian Smith (BCS) who coaches for REAL and is living in PR for the winter. He snagged one of the best waves of the day on Nuzzi’s 6’6 Rusty Predator. Once we landed in Tortolla, surfing at Apple Bay and drinking Bomba punches at The Bomba Shack were the call until we left the dock for the REAL BVI 10 day trip. We even ran into “Big Hair Dave” from Dub Island Sound System in the water at Apple Bay!
The kiting has been really good so far with great winds on day #1, 2, 3 and 4. Kites have ranged from 7m up to 17m, so plenty of time to use everything in your quiver. The new 2010 Liquid Force Lowrider lightwind twins (146 and 165cm) have been a big hit when the breeze lightens up. All the 2010 kiteboards on the “Beach of Twins” have been run through their paces with kiters already gravitating towards their favorites.
The demo scene has been nothing short of impressive with all the new 2010 kites and boards from Slingshot, Naish, Liquid Force and Best rigged and ready to ride for the clients. Many return clients have said this has been the best REAL BVI trip ever because of the amount of gear available to test, as well as all the great riders and friends that are with us on the trip.
The surfing and standup paddleboarding have also been keeping us busy with another good swell hitting on day #4 and 5. We anchored the boats in the channel and took advantage of the clean offshore conditions and a long right hand point break. The first day was little bigger allowing shortboard and longboard surfing as well as standup paddleboarding. LONG noserides were the call for the longboarders, while the shortboarders were ripping the end bowl of the wave. We have 2 Surftech Takayama “In the Pink” longboards with us (9’3 and 9’6) and these boards worked incredibly well on this wave. Other favorites were the Stretch What and Quadfish, as well as the Resin 8 Tokoro 5’8 Fish.
For standups, we brought the new Surftech Pearson Arrow Laird 10’6 and a Stretch 9’6 Quad. Both of these boards had a line of people waiting to ride them at the point break wave, each probably logging 100 waves throughout the course of the day! Today we checked out The Baths, and the standup paddling in there was just unbelievable! It was like combining technical rock climbing with SUP, you’ll have to check out the pictures and video to get the complete picture of what was going on, but it was a blast!
The Evening Cool Down Party Tour has seen 4 stops so far, the first hosted by the REAL lead boat, and then two following on both the Moorings 62ft cats. The cool down on “Good Vibrations” tonight is to celebrate REAL BVI guests Dimitri and Anna’s 21st anniversary. This is their first year with us on the trip, having traveled all the way from Cypress to get here. These nightly get-togethers happen either on land or on one of the Moorings Signature Yachts and are a great way to meet new friends and share session stories.
The weather predictions look good for the rest of the trip with Thursday and Friday seeing above average tradewinds and another new swell hitting Thursday through Saturday. Today (Wednesday) the wind was lighter, so we rented a fleet of Laser sailboats from the Bitter End Yacht Club and spent the afternoon racing in the North Sound until sunset. If Colin Gowland, Andy Gassner and Adam Mitchell are reading this….man this was a GOOD TIME! Enily Vater joined us from Puerto Rico today, flying in for several days. Many of you remember Enily’s smiling face as our REAL Lesson Center Manager before we moved in the new REAL Flagship Store.
THANKS again to everyone back home who are covering for us while we’re gone. The sessions have been great and everyone is having a blast. The 10-day schedule is allowing everyone more water time and more time to just unplug and relax.