The Peconic Puffin

Windsurfing doesn’t do well in most newspaper headlines. Either the headline is about someone being rescued (and it’s usually a kiter being rescued but the reporter screwed it up) or it’s someone making windsurfers out to be crazy or extreme or whatever (not that these contingents aren’t well represented in our community.) When a local Long Island newspaper chose to put a great photo of me (thank you thank you thank you!) on their front page, captioned with neither bad news nor hyperbole, Frank approved, and commented thus:

“Michael, I just saw the cover photo of you on the Riverhead Newspaper from your site. Great photo. It’s so nice to see news coverage of our sport with out the superlatives; extreme, or rescue.”

I’m with you, Frank, particularly re windsurfing photos captioned “rescue”.

Even more particularly, photos of ME windsurfing, captioned “rescue.”

But that would be better than a photo of me windsurfing, captioned “his remains were found…”

Which I suppose would still beat a photo of me windsurfing, captioned “he was last seen being dragged below the surface by huge sharks.”

That would really suck.

(photo: The cover of the Riverhead News-Review. Click and squint to read the perfectly reasonable caption.)

(Additional note: Frank Messina played a small but important role in my windsurfing past: He is the first windsurfer I ever saw do a planing jibe. I’d been windsurfing for two years with people who either did not care about jibing or who did not plane through their jibes, and while I’d heard of the thing, seeing it happen was a revelation. Frank carved beautiful jibes. I immediately moved from the “I don’t care” contingent to the lowest ranks of the “I must jibe” crew.)