Windsurfing - The Jibe Trick The Jibe Trick
(Monday July 27, 1999)

We went windsurfing yesterday for a little while. I'd forgotten how chaotic the "waves" are. Chop chop. No understandable pattern. Just lots of randomly occuring mountains and valleys. Once in a while, something that looks like a familiar wave crest will roll by.

The last technique I learned was how to waterstart and that was in '97. In '98, I improved my reliability waterstarting. However, for more than a year, the only reliable turn I could make was the "dismount jibe."

In spite of this, the jibe trick I learned in Bonaire still seems to work.

It's amazing what that small bit of advice did for my turns. I had to make a conscious effort to really listen and *really* try, but by golly, it worked! I think that I was also somehow "ready" to absorb the lesson. I was a little worried that the apparent progress in Bonaire would be limited to that small island. However, yesterday, under "real" conditions, I stopped counting jibes.