Opa-Pinneberg setting up his windsurf gear. 1980s in Langholz, Germany.
I have always thought of the sport of windsurfing as being like a beautiful dance with the wind. At first, this was going to be a story about how my dream and vision of learning to windsurf became a reality, then memories of my grandfather entered the scene and finally and unavoidably, the story of how I met John. So, this is about all those events, because they are all, after all, connected.
'Opa-Pinneberg’ was my mother’s father, the only grandparent I knew growing up. He lived in the northern German town of Pinneberg. His wife, my mother’s mother, had sadly passed away years ago in a car accident and my father’s father equally had passed away from cancer the year before I was born. My father was estranged from his mother and although I met her once or twice I had no relationship with her. But ‘Opa’ was a presence in my life. We would visit and stay with him during school vacations, sometimes we would meet him at the family's summer home by the Baltic Sea, which he had built. He made the best rosehip jam! Although, I can't remember if he actually made the jam or just helped to prep the fruit, but I recall him sitting on the porch of the summer home patiently completing the arduous task of cleaning the itchy, sticky, white seeds out of the rosehip fruits he had picked along the beach. He taught me how to peel the tiny North Sea Shrimp he would buy straight from the boat, wrapped in a sheet of newspaper. You gently twist the head and then pull off the tail. Oh, those were delicious!!
Opa at the beach with his gear in Langholz, Germany, 1980s.
He was also an active man. He liked to ski and joined us for at least one family ski vacation when I was very young, no older than 3, I think. He enjoyed sailing, and he windsurfed! And those were the early days of windsurfing in the 80s when the equipment to go 'sailboarding' was heavy and unwieldy. The board was colossal, the boom and mast made from wood, and the sail much more like that of a sailboat than what you might see on a windsurfer today. I was intrigued! I don't know that I ever saw my grandfather in action windsurfing across the Eckernfoerder Bucht, but I remember the gear tucked away in a small dusty basement hole and his wetsuit hanging up behind the bedroom door. For some reason, I was inspired and decided that this was something I wanted to learn someday!
Finally, in my mid-teens, I had grown strong enough to just barely handle my grandfather's heavy windsurf gear. So I crouched down and crawled into the dusty and dark little basement hole to retrieve his equipment, I loaded it onto a small cart and wheeled it to the beach. I had studied an introductory book on windsurfing that was as grey and dusty as the equipment, but it had given me the basic idea of how to stand on the board and how to move the mast forward and backward in order to steer the board. I was envisioning myself crossing the bay, just like Opa. Of course, I did not cross the bay that day, but I did manage to stand on the board and in very light winds I felt the board respond to my attempts of moving the mast backward and forward and gently steering the board.
Beginners course at lake Chiemsee. May 2003.
It took almost another 10 years until I would stand on a sailboard again. By then the revolution in equipment design had moved along by lightyears and I was able to learn on a wide, light, and stable board when I took my first beginner's course in 2003 on the lake Chiemsee in the south of Bavaria. I spent a week learning the basics, but the wind never exceeded 5mph ... So, my body was not really getting used to the motions but at least the vision of what I might someday do grew more vivid in my mind.
In 2004, as a graduation gift from my parents, I spent two weeks on the Greek island of Lefkada advancing my basic skills. I learned to tack and jibe, beach start, and play with different sail sizes. In lower wind conditions I enjoyed trying out some acrobatics on the board, like heli tacks and sailing backward. It was a lot of fun! In the higher wind conditions, the beginners sat on the beach watching the professionals show off and I spent more time dreaming: 'One day ...'. With that, I was off to Cape Cod in the summer of 2004, where the first thing I did after securing a mattress to sleep on and a car was to purchase my very own windsurf equipment.
Loaded up to go surfing on Cape Cod. August 2004.
Now I had the dream in the back of the car and strapped to the roof, I was ready to go! But it turned out, it was not that easy. I was still very much a beginner and on Cape Cod most of the beaches had waves! And there was a big ocean out there ... I was not at all comfortable enough to brave the beach on my own and was having some trouble finding a buddy to share the fun and responsibilities of windsurfing with, someone to learn with or to learn from. I was also really busy, I traveled so much that there was little time left to do fun stuff like windsurfing. During my first couple of summers on Cape Cod, all I was able to accomplish was to watch the pros go out in conditions I was not able to handle and keep on dreaming. At one point I even wondered if I shouldn't just sell my gear ...
I am glad I didn't because finally one day I got a call from a friend who said: 'Uli, I'll be down at Trunk River. Want to join me?' Well, of course, I did!!! I don't remember what happened that day at Trunk river and how it all went, but after getting my feet wet with a friend I finally felt more courageous to get out there.
Another friend helped me discover a little hidden beach on Waqouit Bay, a sheltered and shallow bay on the south side of the Cape. On July 15th, 2006, the wind looked good and I asked him if he wanted to go and check the bay out with me. But he couldn't, he had to pick up his sister from the airport. So off I went to explore on my own. Just getting to the beach was an adventure. The mile-long dirt road through the bush was just a string of giant potholes that I had to negotiate carefully with my little car to avoid bottoming out and getting stuck. Eventually, I made it to a small parking area on the eastern side of the bay. There were no waves, no open ocean, and so I felt quite comfortable. I rigged up and went for it! But the wind was a bit strong that day, even for my smallest sail and I struggled to hang on.
I dragged my gear back onto the beach to take a break and a fellow windsurfer came over to chat. He wanted to know the usual things: how's the wind, what sail are you using, how is it going? He was trying to work out if he should get out there himself. I explained I was new to the beach and fairly new to the sport and felt somewhat overwhelmed even with my smallest sail. He suggested that I could use one of his. Off he went to get his gear from a blue Ford Ranger. It seemed he was there with a bunch of friends, who decided to leave, but he stayed, helped me rig up, and got his own gear set up. 'I am John, by the way.' He introduced himself.
The moment John came over to talk to me at Waquoit Bay, caught on camera by a friend. July 15th, 2006.
We windsurfed together for a while and finished with a beer on the beach, chatting, then said our good bye's. I knew he was John from Vermont, he knew my name and that I worked in Oceanography. No other information was exchanged, but somehow he found me, and a few weeks later I got an email from him with a suggestion that we meet again for more windsurfing. Over the next few months, we met several times at various spots on or near the Cape. He helped me brave the exposed beaches and I was starting to get a feel for 'working the waves'. When I did not meet with John I continued going back to Waquoit Bay as often as possible. Over the next few months I grew more and more comfortable on my board and gathered, shall we say, 'experience'. I got used to the harness and to using my foot straps. In the right conditions planing was a breeze, in too strong winds I was regularly catapulted all over the place, I had so much fun! The day I got whiplash though, I conceded that being more careful was a good policy. I managed a few water starts, though my jibes and tacks never got particularly graceful. In the end, I managed to sail across the bay - not the bay of Eckernfoerde, which my grandfather used to cross, but the much smaller Waquoit bay, nonetheless, I felt pretty happy about that!
Me windsurfing at Waquoit Bay, July 2006.
In 2007 I left Cape Cod and spent a few weeks of the summer by the Baltic Sea before moving to Ireland. I had fun exploring some of the windsurf beaches there, which maybe my grandfather also knew decades earlier. In 2009 I moved back to the US and to Vermont, to get married to the windsurfer I had met at Waquoit Bay three years ealier. Now it was my (much more modern) windsurf gear that was collecting dust at my mother's house by the Baltic Sea. There's still hope that maybe my sister-in-law or my nieces and nephews might have an interest in learning someday.
With John's help, I turned to kitesurfing, which he was starting to learn and teach himself when we first met. Vermont is not a great place to kitesurf or windsurf and so the only chance we got to get out on the water was a yearly trip in the spring to the Outer Banks (OBX) of North Carolina. Usually, when I reflect on my kitesurfing and windsurfing efforts, I tend to be modest about it and say that I wasn't all that good really, but as I look back at some of the old pictures from our trips, I feel that I wasn't that bad and by the end, I was starting to get the hang of it fairly well!
Me kitesurfing on the Outer Banks, NC. April 8th, 2010.
After John died, our yearly trips to OBX slowly dwindled and his windsurf and kitesurf gear found new homes with friends in Florida, Massachusetts, and Germany. My own efforts to keep up the sport stopped.
When I reflect now on this passing passion of mine and my drive and determination to learn to windsurf, I sometimes wonder if its main purpose in my life wasn't maybe just so I would meet John. I suppose it all depends on how you look at life and whether you believe there to be purpose and reason for everything or if it is just a string of completely random events. I think it is fun to think that something that my grandfather inspired me to learn ultimately lead me to meet John and how all these things are connected. I wonder too if they might not have gotten on quite well had their known each other in their youths, having shared interests in winter and water sports. Who knows?! In my imagination, they might be dancing with the wind together somewhere!
John kitesurfing at sunset on the Outer Banks. April 8th, 2010.
