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A little-known scientific fact: There is a place in one's brain, a kind of tiny, hidden kitchen, where thought, action and creativity are occasionally heated at precise concentrations until, drip by drip, adrenaline is produced. I discovered this in the first grade when the nuns carried me to the principal's office --while I was still sitting stubbornly in my desk. I rediscovered it a few years later by racing motorcycles and sports cars. I found it again in 1974 at a coffee shop in Philadelphia's Main Line when a guy named Bruce Springsteen jumped up onto a speaker and performed a sweaty, splendid rock-and-roll sacrament. A few years ago I found it once again, this time in the back set of a jet fighter, where, before I could argue, I was pulling 6 Gs at 500 knots, upside down, watching the ocean coming up real quick, too quick, needing to puke bad but too excited to care. Funny how things change. Now when Bruce tours he picks an area code and sells it out for three nights. I can't talk the Air National Guard into another flight, fast cars are too expensive and I've developed a fear of motorcycles and pavement, thanks to a 14-inch metal rod sitting on my desk, a rod that used to hold my femur together. Nuns always scared me, but I know how to avoid them now. That's life. You make adjustments, and the button that works the adrenaline machine gets hard to find. But there's something else now, something that takes me to those same places, time after time. It lets me act stupid and not get hurt. It allows me to fly again and go fast and on the best days it reminds me that almost anyone can demonstrate a kind of physical artistry, even if they'll never be Bruce. It's hard to explain how this happens or who it's most likely to happen to but I'm here to tell you that windsurfing is legal and safe. Nobody has been able to explain to me how something that's so much fun can still be both of those other things. But after years of windsurfing something still puzzles me. Why don't more people do it? There are spots across the United States, including its interior, that are great for windsurfing. Even along the coasts it hasn't caught on in a big way. I'm talking about beautiful areas blessed with warm water for a significant part of the year. Places where the wind is, depending on the day, gentle for learning and wild, for the accomplished sailor. Where there are waves for riding and flat water for going fast. And you don't have to jump on an airplane to get to one. You're living there. Yeah. New Jersey. Being a windsurfer here is like being a skier in Vermont -- not the best in the country or the world, but pretty damn good. Stand at the top of the Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City. What do you see? Water. Everywhere. Every direction. Lakes, rivers, bays, oceans. It's all there. New Jersey's got the water and the wind to compete with any spot in the continental United States except for the Columbia River Gorge (the West Coast mecca) and Cape Hatteras in North Carolina. From my perspective as a fallen skier, it's difficult to see why people drive so far to snow ski for a few hours when they could be windsurfing in their back yards four, six, eight, ten months out of the year. I feel like a Moonie stuck at the airport, able to feel the rapture but unable to spread it. Here, in our back yard, you throw your board on top of the car, drive 10 minutes or a half hour to the sailing spot, put your rig together in another 10, max, and you're in the water. No slip fees, insurance, beach permits, motor, gasoline, trailers or other hassles. Just carry your "boat" to the water, jump on and go. The only noise you hear is that little voice in your head when you can't sail and you're heading to the office, the one that says, "Aren't those leaves starting to move? Is it getting windy enough to sail?" Yes, it can be expensive. But it doesn't have to be. There are people who, after years of near-fatal attraction, have collected maybe $30,000 worth of equipment if you count the vans they buy to haul the stuff around. But there are also people who buy $500 worth of used equipment, throw it all on top of the family car and have just as good a time. If that sounds like a lot of money, consider the cost of a ski trip. Lift tickets are expensive. Wind is free. Safety? Well, windsurfing probably has the best thrill-to-risk ratio in sports. It is safe, but it feels so exciting that one gets the idea that it has to be dangerous. Your ego, however, will get hurt before it's over. Like anything satisfying, windsurfing can be frustrating. Not at first. Hell, you'll be sailing the first hour of your first day. But you will never get good enough to be satisfied. Happy, yes. Satisfied no. Cold water? Well, yeah. People who surf all year, including those who paddle out to surf when the water is 45 degrees Fahrenheit or so, will tell you they'd much rather go out without the full wetsuit, the booties, and gloves and that hat. But doesn't the fact that they will wear all that stuff tell you something? Same with windsurfing. In a place like New Jersey it's possible to sail for eight months of the year quite comfortably, with a wetsuit, and all year if you want to add the accessories. Eight months -- compare that to how long the snow ski season lasts. One thing to remember is that windsurfing is nothing like sailing a sailboat. Forget everything you know, except for some of the most basic vocabulary like jibe, tack, upwind and downwind. Windsurfing is to sailing as Formula One cars are to Cadillacs. Sure, windsurfing can be a gentle cruise across the bay in light wind, but that's not why most people love it and that's not why most people are drawn to it. With windsurfing there's always some nice twisty, high-speed road to go down, if you want to push it, and you will. The beauty is that you decide when. You wait until you're comfortable, then -- wham! -- you're getting slammed back into your seat, eyes big, smile wide, adrenaline dripping. You'll learn to windsurf about as quickly as you learned to snow ski. And if you happen to live near water it's much more convenient than snow skiing. No airplane tickets required, unless you HAVE to sail Hawaii (it's worth it). Many windsurfers are recovering snow skiers. I count myself in that group. I can't see driving seven hours for good skiing when I can windsurf good waves in the ocean from the beach on the barrier island where I live. And so it is frustrating, but not because of the learning curve, which has been greatly reduced by good equipment produced in the past few years. No, the frustration comes after youÕve been hooked. Skilled sailors, the ones who live for 20 knots of wind and up, are continually riled by inept National Weather Service forecasts for wind. Because, you see, once they're hooked they start trying to arrange their lives around windsurfing. When predictions for Big Days donÕt come true, it's disappointing. You'll soon learn you'll never be as good as you want, which is exactly what keeps some people interested and others obsessed. If it were easy it would be a boring sport done by boring people. Windsurfing is for people who like to think in a pure, physical way. When you're trying to sail there is no room to worry about the mortgage. You must focus. That act of narrow thinking, which mercifully occurs without effort, serves to squeeze out every bit of unnecessary mind junk. Windsurfing stretches you, always. In the beginning you just want to stay on the board and go a few feet. Soon you're looking to go faster, jump higher, sail in more wind and try those high-G turns the good people make look so easy. And then you want to ride those fast, maneuverable short boards, and then you start thinking about riding real waves in the ocean -- and what about those storms, does anybody go out in those storms? Yeah. They do. And let me tell you a secret. When there is a hurricane off the coast of New Jersey, or even just a powerful coastal storm, the waves sometimes get as big as Hawaii's. And suddenly you're a member of the lunatic fringe, for whom wind is a drug. The more wind, the bigger and cleaner the waves, the better the high. These are the ones beyond help, who juggle careers, families and other Life stuff, always with one eye on the forecast and the other on the 20-knot clause, which stipulates that all normal activity must cease when the wind exceeds that fateful window to high-performance windsurfing. The world speed record for windsurfing is over 50 knots now. Most recreational sailors donÕt get past 30, even on flat water, but if feels like 100. For me it's the waves. A wood windsurfer can rip up a wave in ways that surfers can only dream of. A surfer only has the power of the wave and gravity to work with. A windsurfer has a third tool: The wind. Armed with a sail and good wind, a windsurfer can hunt down the best waves, ride more of them, and drill them furiously, exploding off the top, and then, when heading back out to do it again, hit the ramps of the oncoming waves for jumps 10, 15 and 20 feet high, floating for long seconds before splashing -- or crashing. Beware. Once you've felt the drip of this kind of adrenaline you will want more. |