Nitinat trip #7 of 2005 was excellent for having a drink with friends and a good long day of practicing jibing/tacking and rippin' across the lake as quickly as possible. Weather has too improve soon.....waiting for the High pressure to fill in.....soon, soon!! Anyways......

Left home Saturday morning at 5am....drove to Duncan to get gas and Mickey D's then continued on to Buckley bay ferry to meet up with Casey 7's coming from Hornby Island. Arrived at the terminal at 7:45 and sat on the beach reading a paper until 8:30 when Casey arrived in the Red Explorer and Windsurfing trailer. The plan was to sail Saturday, play with everyone Saturday night and leave 1st thing Sunday AM. So we loaded up my 1 board(Carve 121) and 2 sails/masts/booms and 4 fins and a bit of camping gear into his trailer and headed off to the lake. Made a quick stop in Port Alberni for some BIG A$$ steaks and bevies and were on our way. The road in from Port was pretty good but dusty and we passed 4 or 5 loaded BIG logging trucks.

Arrived at the lake at 10:30am and as we came around the corner we saw that bottom end of the lake was just almost capping and looked pretty good. We arrived in camp to all the good beach access spots being taken so we buddied up with Mike and Rosie and Sophia...thanks!!! We unloaded the trailer and got our gear on the beach as quickly as possible. I rigged the Carve 121 with a 38cm freeride fin and Severne Overdrive 8.5m and Casey rigged the Ezzy Wave SE 6.9m and JP Super-X 115 with a 34cm fin. I was on the water by 11am and after 20 seconds of schlooging I hit the wind and started rippin' and let our the biggest YAHOO!!! Casey was on the water 5 mins behind me as he had to put on the wetsuit and I just put on the shorts and rash guard and he was rippin' too! It picked up at Noonish to almost 20kts so I came in and rigged the Severne C2 6.5m but by the time it was rigged it had dropped back to 14-17 so I went out again on the 8.5 and stayed on it all day. Casey came in right after me to rig the Trance and a 5.7m but he decided to take out the original gear again....oh well....only lost 15-20mins of TOW. We came in again at 3pm to eat something and Casey made some tuna sangy's. I put mine down on a log beside my chair, went to the car for a V8 juice and when I came back it was gone......Pat and Ricks dog had a suspicious smile on his face with Rick hanging onto his collar.....nice trick Rick, blame it on the dog....Sangy Stealer!!! I ate a banana instead saw some people trying to get up on their board so went over to ask if I could help. Jeff and Shayla were open to me giving some advice. It seemed to work okay as they made some progress. Andrea was there as well except we was trying to get up on an older, thin board with a small baggy sail. Not making much progress I suggested to go out on the Start board her friends were on. Ended up she had rented that one from Coastal WaterSports. Next thing I notice she was heading off across the lake and making it back upwind of where she started...NICE!! By then it was time for me to head back out thinking I could wait till dinner for the steaks. Sailed till 5pm when it started to drop 10-12kts. Thought it was over but 10 mins later it picked up to 14-17kts again and went back out till 6pm when it dropped to 10-12kts so I came in and was about to change when MB asked if I wanted to use his GO 140 with a 50cm fin. I said sure and attached the Severne 8.5 and took off like a shot!! NICE!!! Mike, I owe you for that one!! Sailed till 7:15pm up and down with fewer and fewer people on the lake until at 7pm only A535 and a couple kites were still out. I saw Fred's boat at the Day use beach and ripped over. He was selling fish and crabs so I took 2 crabs for $5...Thanks to LUD who paid and gave me a pot to cook them in. (Hey LUD, I left the pot with the $5 under it on your table in the AM...hope you got it) I looked for one last puff and planed back in with a BIG smile on my face. Another fantastic 8 hours(ish) of sailing.....sooner or later a planing jibe will show it's ugly head!!

Came in and put on some dry, warm clothes and Casey and I had a beer and de-rigged my gear and put it away ready for an early trip out the next day. We started cooking steaks and crab. NICE!! Sat down and ate the steak and had a beer and went and disected the crabs and put them on to cook.....portable BBQ wasn't hot enough so we put the crab cooking pot on Mikes fire and I took off trying to make some new friends and say HEY to old ones. I met lotsa kiters whose names I forget and the old windsurf gang. John with hat and Karen(who I hadn't seen since the beginning of last summer when we camped out and played word games at the fire on the beach - lotsa fun),Mike, Rosie, Sophia, Pat, Rick, Meiri, andrea, Mya, MB, Johnny from the North island, LUD, Lea, Tony + 2, Kate, A535, John and (???) and their beautiful daughter, Chris S. & Kris S. + 3 with their new fancy, dancy luxurious trailer(yes, but I'm only a little jealous), and 5 young kids who drove out from Toronto in a van with a gear trailer. These 5 were ripping on the lake all day on smaller gear doing fancy, dancy tricks and turns and freestyle stuff. All 5 of them together didn't weigh as much as I do so I didn't feel to bad about having to sail the 8.5 all day long. One fella(Josh Wood) who I remember reading his name on the Starboard web site and the Toronto Windsurfing club web site who is a really, really good Junior Formula Experience racer and freestyler. I ended up playing (A-dog)cards with Kris and ??? and the Princess who had a great name which I have also forgotten(either too many Smir's or just getting old and forgetful. Sorry Princess!! Had fun and went to bed around 12:30am on the beach my sleeping bag with Casey who made it there an hour earlier. A beautiful night...lots of stars out with no bugs. Woke up at 5:30am to lotsa bugs so we got up and packed up and headed out by 6am. A great quick trip to the lake with lots of TOW!! Drove back through the Port passing 8 empty BIG logging trucks. Ate some Mickey D's in Port then got to the Buckley Bay ferry terminal just after the first boat left. Next one leaves in an hour....time for Casey to catch up on some sleep. I drove home and arrived home just after Noon. Unpacked and slept till 3:30pm....NICE!!

Amazingly fun trip for being there less than 24 hours. Chatted with lots of sailing friends, made a few new ones and enjoyed life at the lake!! I love this place

Rob dood,

You forgot the dinner with Mike and Rosie. Perfect three course apres sailing meal: Steak, crab and roast lamb.

accckkK! Sorry Mikey, you(Rosie probably) made the most delicious lamb that I have ever eaten!! Mikey, you know you are not really camping!! Camping means roughing it....at least a little bit of roughing it....that lamb dinner was a-flippin-mazing!!!!! Sorry for leaving it out of my re-cap. Really, you're never going to read this as you have another 2 or 3 weeks of 'not-camping' to do.....SMILE!!

Thanks again Mike, Rosie and Sophia. Your family is a great camp-beside family!! ps. how do you keep your little princess soooooo quiet......mouth full of lamb perhaps..??!!??

Hey Bobson... just wanted to mention that all was not lost in your rigging the 6.5 I had some fun runs on it that day. Thanks for sharing with me! Yipee!