Sailed at Orewa
Rated a 8 of 10

Wind from the NE (knots)

lulls: 12

average: 14

gusts: 15

Board: Carbon Art Slalom FS 80 2008
Sail: NP Saber 7.2 2005
Fin: Nik Baker 66
Suit: Short sleeve., Shorties.

First time in my shorties, yeah! Water was warm, especially close to the beach. Definitively warmer than my pool, probably 23 or or so.

Beatiful weather, beautiful blue water. Not as good as Maui, but pretty good :-)

We partly went to Orewa because my wife's second cousin Marieke Beek stayed with us for a week, before traveling New Zealand with a group. We already had been to Piha last week with Ida's sister who's also traveling New Zealand at the moment. The weather was just too good to stay home, and the wind was East. So we could combine a great beach and location with some windsurfing for me.

Windsurfing was nice. Pretty choppy and a few hundred metres from the shore fairly high rolling waves. Board behaves perfectly in such circumstances. Nice riding. Jibing was hard with those waves, so got only a few.

Unfortunately the day ended on a really low note. I had left my headlights on, so we had a flat battery. Called the AA around 16:50, but only at 18:30 or so the AA arrived. And send a complete disaster playing car mechanic. He put on the jump starter, but the car didn't start. He got a second jump starter and tried to put that on as well. The flames came of the engine when he did that. Smoke, fire, never seen anything like that. He tried it even a couple of times, same effect. After that called a guy for advice. And tried it again after that, this time without the sparks. He probably reversed the plus or minus or something like that.

After that the car was dead. No lights came on when I turned the key, which they did before. He obviously short circuited something. But didn't admit anything. Said he would call a tow car. He did and told us the tow car could only take two people, so we had to call ourselves a taxi to get the others of us, we were with six, home.

Orewa is in the middle of nowhere, so it took us more than 20 minutes to locate a taxi company. The taxi company arrived pretty quickly, perhaps around 19:15 or so. I had to wait till 20:45 before the tow truck finally arrived. Home at 22:00.

The AA will get the bill.