Category: Uncategorized
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Perfect Wave Sailing (Part 2)
I’m back in the Southern Hemisphere looking for perfect wind and waves. On day two of my trip, I found them in Margaret River, Western Australia. It takes a minute (I’m trying out this new colloquialism that I picked up in California) to get here; 40 hours door to door with over 90 kg (200…
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The Hike
Hike is such a poor word for such a noble activity. Short and sharp, it gets the tone all wrong. I prefer the French randonnée or even better, the Spanish senderismo, something lengthy and weighty with ups and downs and a hint of romance. I don’t hike much but I really enjoy it. Yesterday was…
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In Praise of Rock Climbing
I always travel with a pair of rock climbing shoes, small, narrow rubber and leather lace-ups that hurt my feet. It’s a sport I often practiced before the pandemic shut down all the climbing gyms that I happily rediscovered on my Christmas break. It’s the best possible land-based complement to windsurfing and a recommended workout…
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Reflections on Chile
My heart was heavy when I left Chile. The country, the people, the ocean; each felt special and, in turn, made me feel special. Starting with the country, here’s a quote that fits. “Latin America has always been, first and foremost, about geography—stunning, bountiful, impossible and treacherous.” Chile has 4,000 miles (6,435 km) of coastline,…
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The Road to Topocalma
Topocalma, Topo to the locals, has an almost mystical reputation in windsurfing circles. It’s a super fast, super clean wave that gets super strong gusty cross-offshore winds, sometimes to devastating effect when the waves are big. At the end of a tortuous drive it’s often not sailable, but on a good day the wave is…
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Going South
The wind was not cooperating in Matanzas, Chile, so I consulted the weather maps and drove a few hundred miles south, deep into Mapuche territory. The Mapuche make up the vast majority of Chile’s indigenous inhabitants, mostly living in southern Chile, an area they call Wallmapu. Unable to conquer the Mapuche, the Spanish colonialists and…
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Riding Big Waves
My “big” is a wave face 4 meters high (13 feet) and has nothing to do with what the locals call big (6 m or 20 ft) or Hawaiians call big (8 m of 26 ft) or the biggest wave ever surfed (30 m or 100 ft). But still, it’s big to me and I…
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Know Your Limitations
I grew up in London on a diet of American movies. Set against grey, dusty England, America was all adventure and riches. There was not much philosophy to be learned from the stream of happy endings (though optimism is a powerfully positive force in America) but I kept a favorite saying, delivered by an American…
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Perfect Wave Sailing (Part 1)
I came to Matanzas because it has excellent wave sailing for windsurfers. How good? On my first day, not-so-fresh off an overnight flight from Miami and a three hour drive from the airport, I was on the beach chatting with a local windsurfer, mother of two boys in their twenties, also windsurfers. I introduced myself,…
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About Matanzas
I was last in Matanzas, Chile, ten years ago. It was known as a windsurfing destination for the adventurous. The waves and the wind are superb, but the location is remote. After a three hour drive from Santiago on ever-narrowing roads you reach a one-street coastal village surrounded by stunning nature, steep wooded hills behind…
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