...So we wound up at Dennys.

[PonoBill]

It's definitely time to see the knee doc. I guess that means it's a good thing we only have two weeks left on Maui.

I went to Kihei today after looking at Ka'a and the harbor. The wind was blowing straight out of the north, which I'm not a fan of at Ka'a, and I generally don't like the harbor anyway, though I seem to wind up there a lot--something like heading out on a Friday night when I was a young buck, looking for fun and perhaps some female companionship and winding up alone at Denny's at 2:00 AM eating really crappy apple pie.

So I drove across the island and found conditions looking tasty at the Canoe Hale. I rigged up and then watched the whitecaps double down while I pumped up my 4.2 wing. I thought about dropping to 3.5 but it didn't look THAT strong, so I went for it. Got blown all over the place just trying to get to my feet and finally went off backward, bending my bad knee a lot further than it really wants to go. I flopped around a bit, thinking I tore something, rode back to the beach, and managed to over-bend the knee again and stuff my stabilizer through the wing. A fuck up twofer.
Stephen Ross helped me get out of the water, taking my poor shredded wing. I thought I was done, but when I carried my board back to get ready to put stuff away and bail I realized my knee felt pretty much OK.

So I pumped up my 2.8 to give it another go, since the wind had amped up from nice to nutball. I'm a fan of nutball.

I stomped around a while to settle things that might be wiggling around under my kneecap, then went out again. It took forever to get to my feet, the tweak to my knee plus the low torque of the dinky wing giving me little help to haul myself up to a standing position--made for a grim few minutes. I finally wobbled to my feet, pumped up on foil, and off I went--feeling very much like a leaf in a hurricane. Going out at a close reach wasn't too bad, though the swells were brutal and bumpy. I went out quite a way looking for a smooth(ish) patch to jibe on. Never found one. I settled for a few bounces and a slow, wide jibe with a substantially out-of-control downwind stretch, but I was determined not to fall and need to get back up. Coming back in I was a very uncomfortable passenger. With the odd wind angle and the gusty shifts I'd get pulled off balance and into a super-fast downwind reach while I struggled to regain my balance. One of those would have been a bit much, ten or so really sucked. I decided I might cure my knee problem by ripping it to shreds if I screwed up, so I sailed straight to the beach and bailed. Stephen came in right behind me and we agreed that this wasn't exactly our idea of a relaxing fun time. So we bailed to the harbor.

Yes, once again, I wound up at Dennys.

[SUPJorge]

Good job exercising that writing muscle!