The actual inlet at Sebonac Inlet connects Bullhead Bay to the Great Peconic Bay. Driving to Saturday’s session I saw that Bullhead was still largely frozen over. The water may be liquid at the inlet, but it was going to be frickin’ cold.
No matter. The wind was honking (“4.2?” Scott guestimated) the air was above 40 (by a degree) and the sun was out. We wuz going windsurfing. I rigged the 4.5 while Scott noted my lack of socks, stuck it on my 77 and took off like a happy shot, soon followed by Frank and Mathias (newly arrived from Europe). Scott, Peconic Jeff and Christian got rigging.
After about 90 minutes (and the arrival of the Wolf and CPU John) I was on shore warming up, exchanging ice-cream headache notes with Frank (two seconds underwater was enough) ramp discussion with Jeff (large clean ones to the west by the clubhouse) and wind notes with Scott (“No holes!” Scott insisted over my protests.)
Scott and I launched and sailed down to the beginning of the bluffs, at which point the wind jumped a sail size and a half. Following a half hour of strong gusts a number of us got tired of survival sailing and went in to rerig. By the time I got back on the water with a 4.0, I had two issues: shot arms (not enough windsurfing this year) and whitecaps having their tops ripped off by megagusts. Not quite liquid smoke, but it seemed like an excellent opportunity to call it a day and perhaps save some energy for tomorrow’s sesh (the sesh that was frozen out.)
As I derigged Fisherman and Jeremy from Montauk arrived to try their hands at the bay. Jeff reported that within the hour everyone was getting blown off the water.
A fine day. Any day you catch a session in February is a fine day!
(Top: Christian catches his first 2011 session. Bottom: Mathias catches his first Long Island session…we look forward to seeing him at a hundred more! Photos by Jeff
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