Dear Mike, of the Peconic Puffin,

Dear Mike, of the Peconic Puffin,

As always, you have instigated a flood of memories. After years of longboards my first "shortboard" was a Hi Tech 9'8". I had been borrowing my friends Mistral "Tarifa", but that was still over 10 feet long. I had seen real shortboards [sinkers, we called them] but the light winds of Manhasset Bay made them impractical. "How can they sail upwind with out a dagger board?"

My eyes were opened my first trip to Napeague. While I sailed on a Mistral Equipe, and a borrowed 4.5; I saw custom shortboards with Captain America graphics plaining and carving full speed jybes! I had to have one.

For Mike, I have added a Napeague circa 1988 shot, "the year of the pinhead". I am in the middle. Note that my boom is at least one foot too long for my sail.

Sometimes you just need rest

Well the shoulder thing is back. My vicodine/celibrex cocktails are no longer keeping the inflammation down. At least it's mid July, and on the whole not very windy. So maybe I've missed one good session. Thank god I have Segue in the water. Lauralee and I have had some really nice late day sails. The temps have been in the 90's; just too hot for her. But we have had some nice light [8-12 knot] thermals. They start late, [about 5] and die promptly at sunset. Plus the mid 80's temperatures are easier to handle.

I'm doing my rehab thing. I think I've done it enough in the last 25 years to remember all the exercises to do. I even have some 'therabands' from my last incident. The big thing is to give it time to heal. And that's always been a problem for me. If it doesn't start to feel better in a few weeks, I'll have to go back to the Doc, who'll do an MRI to diagnose what I already know...who'll prescribe PT for 6 weeks...and then will finally give me an injection...and I'll be fine for another 6 months, to, 2 years.

Thursday July 3rd

I did a drive by at Cedar, and OBI. Saw Kev at the OBI. But I decided I just wasn’t up for the ocean yesterday. So I met up with Lenny and the usual suspects at Heckscher. George and Jill were out together in full force. Saw Mike B land a dry Forward about two feet in front of me. Len and I spent most of our time out by the red buoy, [cleaner swell, less chop. But let’s face it, the big attraction was the wind.

I WANT TO THANK MY MASSAGE THERAPIST, GREG. On Wed, my shoulder was so locked, I couldn’t even brush my teeth, and yesterday I could actually sail for 4 hours on my 5.0 and 90 Ltr Syncro.

Photo by Bill Doutney pretty much captures the grey, windy, bone jarring chop, that is Heckscher.

you can find more photos at his Picasa site

& here & here