Welcome to the Club
According to the wife my timing is impeccable, no that’s not a complement, more of a complaint as it hasn’t stopped raining since she dropped me at the airport. When Jem Hall asked me to join him in Jericoacoara I couldn’t find a good enough excuse to say no, so here I am getting burnt and battered by the endless conditions, sometimes life can be hard.
Sally has to put up with me on a daily basis so knowing she’ll only read the intro I can be a little more honest, this place is amazing. Guess we all travel with preconceived ideas of how the spot will be, my impression of Jeri was a few shacks under a sand dune where the winds are endless.
Well that’s partly true, there is a huge sand dune with wind everyday and make no mistake this is in the middle of nowhere, but as for a few shacks, I couldn’t have been more wrong. It feels like we’re discovering new streets, shops and restaurants every day, that’s not no say it’s a vast town but the natural expectation from a sandy street blind you from what’s really there.
I guess the biggest surprise was the windsurf center, one I can’t talk highly enough about. It feels like walking into a high quality beach resort except there is no hotel. Club Ventos is all about windsurfing, restaurant, rental and rescue ensure you’ll make the most of the day; they just hadn’t figured mine would be spent with Jem.
We first met in Vass for the making of a freestyle movie Showing off where Jem’s contribution was off the water as our host, a role he had a natural bent too. I still believe he was one of the best center managers I’ve come across, balancing the needs of the customer with the motivation of the staff, so I was surprised when the following year he gave it up to be a coach.
Marmite describes Jem perfectly and he’s the first to use the term, I can’t knock it as I fall under the same description. It took awhile for his full on approach to improvement to catch on, so the first couple of years were a on the lean side, but he was getting noticed.
I even sponsored him back in the Whiteboarders days, though I have to confess it was a decision based on reputation rather than experience, as I hadn’t witnessed his “take no prisoners” style of coaching. I’m intrigued to see how his saying, “deconstruct to reconstruct” work along screams of “bender”.
Now quite a few of the boys new I was coming out with Jem this week so my inbox has a few requests to break his balls as he has broken there’s, needless to say the crack level has been on high alert. Just as I first time we met, he takes the job seriously, no random shots and make the article up later but a mindful shot list that he not only wants done one, but repeatedly to ensure his technique is perfect.
So how am I supposed to react as he come off the water, “how was it, did you get everything, was I on it” , “don’t know, I was on the phone to Harty”, it’s been a long week for the poor lad
