2024-08-31 East Wind and Wine Tasting

The forecast was for East Wind.  We all took our time getting organized, but got out the door by 9:30 and were in Stevenson shortly after 10:00.  The place was pretty busy - being the long weekend, and with a Car Show happening in the Kiter parking lot.

It was pretty windy.  Ross went out on his 4m Kite and had a great session, going up past Home Valley where apparently the wind was steadier, the swells were bigger, and there were very few people around.

I totally misjudged, and rigged a 3.5m wing for Louise and a 5m for myself.  Louise should have been on our 2.5, or maybe less.  She was starting to foil a few times, before she even got standing up.  Needless to say it didn't go well.  It was frustrating for Louise, and very stressful for me.  Louise was a trooper and stayed on her knees most of the time, but did a few reaches and made it downwind to Bob's beach.  I sailed around her and kept an eye on her, and then landed at Bob's first and swam back out to help her get through the weeds.

When we got Louise settled on the beach, I swam back out through the weeds, and then sailed back upwind to our launch site.  I did do a few extra reaches on the way back.

I packed up my stuff, and then drove down to Bob's beach where Louise was waiting with her gear.

We drove back to the Condo, thinking we would ride our bikes to Mosier and to the Garnier Winery.  It felt pretty cool in the van with the Air Conditioning on, but it was 34c outside.  When we were unloading our gear at the Condo, we decided that neither of us would survive the bike ride, so instead we drove the van to Garnier Vineyards (which is on the old highway), half way between Mosier and the Lookout.  It is a really beautiful place.  For $20 you get to sample six different wines, and can sit in the shade sipping the wine looking out over the vineyard and river.  We brought some sausage, cheese and crackers with us and had a very nice couple of hours.  Of course we had to purchase a couple of bottles of their wine before we left.

It turned out that we were very lucky that we didn't take the bikes, because the trail from Hood River to Mosier is still closed do to the wild fires.

When we got back to the Condo, we sat on the deck with Ross for a while, and then went to the Crush Cider Café for supper and had an excellent meal with excellent German beer.