The week started off feeling more like the Canaries than Essex as an unusually warm North East wind crossed out shores, but then it didn’t take long to find out you take what you can while it lasts. The opposite end of the week couldn’t have been more different, John Carter may have taken more than most to tie the knot, but his speech was worth waiting for.

Four hours and 63miles of windsurfing off Walton-on-naze couldn’t have started the week off better, high tide even provided a few waves. The warm weather pulled the wind round to an easterly as the sea breeze kicked in on Sunday. Sea breeze, am I really talking about Clacton. It seamed unreal, standing on the beach it just felt like Sotovento in the Canaries; even the sand was starting to fly along the beach.

The forecast was looking so good and a whole load of guys had arranged to come out on Thursday I hadn’t taken a single pic on the water, thought I wait until everyone was here, plus I didn’t want to waist any wind as I had to go to Birmingham on Wednesday.

On the way up I was convincing myself it was good to have a rest, but by lunch time I could resist no longer and called Shaun to check the conditions, he and Dave were heading down, “it’s going off, where are you” I could take no more and ditched my last meeting to catch the train back.

My parents still tell me to be patient, and being a parent myself I should know they’re right… at least some of the time I made it back in time to rig and be heading to the water just as the boys were coming in, “winds dying, should have been here earlier” when haven’t I heard that one before. Sure enough it was dropping and there was only enough wind for two runs, shame the second had a little wave I just couldn’t resist.

I’ve never been able to tail grab, so why I thought this little wave was the perfect time to learn I’ll never know. Well at least I got the grab but that’s my day ended. I stuffed it and ended round the front and rolling my ankle in the process. As I sat with my leg up, the only conciliation was windy Thursday never really happened.

I done my ankles and while its good to keep off it, I’ve found riding a bike the best way to get it back to normal quickly. Plus every time I get injured I end up putting on weight and having tried so hard the last months I don’t want to start going backwards again.

JC made it easy to keep off the water, not sure he cancelled the wind, but even the wind stopped to hear his speech. Probably going to get into trouble for saying it, but it’s the best wedding I’ve been to, none of the stuffiness we come to associate with weddings, just a good day out.

Obviously we couldn’t let the moment go by without dressing up the honeymoon, suie, just looking at the pix below you can see how pleased we all were with our efforts, shame we did the wrong room…

Guy Cribb had organised a costal run from Bournemouth to Brighton, it was set to run on the next good Southerly to hit the south cost, obviously I was trying to get it held over till this coming Thursday, the forecast looked the best plus I figured it would be pushing it to try sailing before. Unforchanetly the forecast wasn’t playing my game and it looked set for Monday. I brought an ankle strap on the way home, but by the time I made it down the stairs at 5am I knew it wasn’t worth the risk, particularly when you see the forecast that’s coming this week.

I’ve just had a call from John Skye; they left at 10am from Bournemouth and didn’t arrive in Brighton for another eight and a half hours later. The Solent proved to be the most difficult section with the wind increasing by two forces. The GPS showed it actually took six and a half of actual sailing; the rest of the time was taken up with stops and sail changes. I lent Guy a GPS for the trip and will be putting up his track here later this week.

Hopefully the boys will want to do this again, don’t want to miss out, but them if I listened to Mum more often, then maybe I wouldn’t have missed this one.