This is a post from my old “All Aluminum Tour” blog about Peyote—my race car and Nero, my Airstream-based car hauler and some crazy stuff I did in 2006-2007
Went to Puamana today to meet some friends from Portland who have two teenage kids. These teenagers are at least 6’4″ and have the metabolism of starving badgers. It was great fun to introduce them to paddle surfing and help them with their surfing. As a final dessert, we tossed the Hobie Adventure Islands in the water and taught them to sail. Like ducks to water. Here are some pics in cartoon format:
Their Dad did pretty darn well too. He’s Bill Stoller of Stoller vineyards, a wine you should know about if you’re into great Pinots. He popped right up on the Laird, and after a few good dunkings was paddling around very creditably. He even caught a few waves and went out through the whitewater successfully. Kudos to both his physical condition and the stability of the Laird board.
The boys did great on he standup boards as well. Both of them managed to stand and paddle, both tried to catch waves, with a little less success than their dad (they were a bit grumpy about getting upstaged by an “old man”). I got them onto surfboards and they did just fine, paddling into and catching lots of thigh-high waves. All three of them successfully caught waves and got up on the boards. The Jimmy Lewis 11’7″ once again proving itself as a magic board that makes anyone look good (I count on that) and theKu Nalu performing as well as it does as a SUP board and wavesailer when simply paddled into waves.
Both of the boys were able to sail the Hobies with just a few minutes of instruction and were soon racing each other up and down the coast. What remarkable boats these are. I mother henned them a while on the JL 11×30 but finally gave up after I realized they:
A. were not going to drown and
B. were going to burn me out completely paddling up and down hundreds of yards to yell instructions.
Even though I gave up early, I’m feeling a little fragile this evening. A bit of Lagavulin and a couple of Advil will help that.