View Single Post
  #72  
Old 06-05-2008, 11:52 PM
ricki's Avatar
ricki ricki is offline
Administrator
Site Admin
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Florida
Posts: 8,700
Default

A late season trip to the Abacos in the Bahamas with WIND at the end of May 2008! Thought it would be calm as anything but it was not.



Having a blast off Hope Town in a very late season strong cold front.



Playing in the waves off Nippers on Great Guana Cay. If you ever ride here be sure to save the nipping until AFTER the riding session. Otherwise use a gun, it's faster and cleaner. There are areas of very shallow coral and expose beach rock formations on the beach ripe for bashing into if you aren't particularly careful. They are often exposed at low tide to less than a foot deep at high tide. Great way to mess up a leg or redo your back?! A downside of the Abacos at least on the Atlantic side of the coasts is the need to prespot clear jump landing areas free of shallow coral stands. Some areas say like off the Hope Town Harbour Lodge, an outstanding hotel and place for dinner btw, has way too many tight coral stands for much jumping. Great free diving though with lots of caves to checkout.



Heading back on a lunch roundwinder to Turtle Hill, Hope Town in dying wind conditions, (after several days of great wind).



Tahiti Beach at the south end of Elbow Cay boardering Tiloo Cut. (click photo for full sized image) People go off about this launch but as near as I can tell, it might be better suited to windsurfers. Windsurfers can glide through the lulls easier than kiterboarders with stalling kites. The viable wind cone for sea breezes seems to be ESE to SE. Outside that, particularly to the north you get a LOT of wind shadow resulting in gusts and LULLS. It may be less clocking to the S and SW than from north of ESE. Went here with E winds, side offshore technical conditions near Elbow Cay. At least navigating south and around into the open ocean into some steep short wavelength swells through Tiloo Cut was technical, real fun though.


Photos by Laura and Rick Iossi
__________________
FKA, Inc.

transcribed by:
Rick Iossi

Last edited by ricki; 06-06-2008 at 08:05 AM.
Reply With Quote