The Peconic Puffin

In 2003 some friends and I drove down the East Coast for a ten day windsurfing tour. Three days were spent in Dewey Beach, Delaware, sharpening our skills in an ABK camp, and then we continued on to the Outer Banks, to spend a week sailing brilliantly out of a rented house in Avon.
But of course, it didn’t turn out that way.
On our first day in Hatteras it blew with gusto, and as I sailed overpowered on a 4.1, ABK-meister Andy Brandt swooped in behind me to encourage me to jump jibe, a move I’d learned two days earlier in somewhat lighter conditions. I jumped, I jibed mid-air, I didn’t get my foot out of the strap, and I came down badly.
It was the only time I ever gave a “thumb’s down” signal to other sailors.
I spent the rest of the week learning Apple’s iMovie software, and making this clip. The sailors are Steve Marks, Jay Edson, “Transition Tom” Hazel (a brilliant freestyle sailor whose home waters are Marsh Creek PA) and myself.
The ankle, originally thought to be broken, was just a bad sprain. Eight weeks of physical therapy to fix, which in my book is a slap on the wrist!