After making the changes to the gym I started on the next build. Looks more like a table for extremely short people, but not knowing if it’ll work out, I’ll leave you guessing. Did I say it might snow; well at least they got that prediction right. I was so cold rigging up in the dark, I started to wonder just what drives us, and madness is all I could come up with.

While most of the country was sitting under a white blanket of snow, there looked to be a perfect forecast for Southend’s Ray, but to catch it I’d have to be walking out to the water in the dark. Even though I only had to pull the sail out of the van and pop a boom on, I was already freezing before I pulled on my wetsuit.

It’s a nine hundred meter walk to the Ray’s speed strip, but once there I was able to race along the bank for over four kilometres before having to turn round. Heading out I was battered by the winds, but even as the board touched the water the wind started to ease, the wind had blown through earlier than predicted.

After a few runs I was stuck at the far end looking for enough wind just to get going, with a potential walk home it dawned on me, I must be nuts to be driven to these lengths just for a sail. But then I latched onto a gust and it all made since, I may be on my own in the freezing cold water, but looking in the windows of lone drivers stuck in their warm cars heading for the office, I knew I was the sane one.

Like the wind, I didn’t stay on the water for long, but a phone call from Shaun had me heading for another beach in the after noon. We haven’t got any on the water pix, Southend I was alone, and at Point Clear we had to skim the mud just to get out, so not only was it a kite only afternoon, we were to far out for pix. The wind had swung and was still gradually dropping, but it had warmed up as the sky cleared to a perfect blue. By the time the water hit the beach the sun was dropping over the horizon, a picture perfect end to a picture less day.