Although my planning this year was to participate the PWA tour (I trained a lot) I got a big surprise! Me and Eric expect a little girl around New Years Eve. Still can’t believe I am going to be a mom! <3
Well, competition was no option anymore because I had to do it easy and I was very sick the first weeks. We decided to go somewhere in Europe in the end of my first trimester. After being in Bonaire only playing on flat water I was really looking forward to some waves, but it didn't seem like it was windy and wavy at the same time. Leucate, in the South of France (but flat water), on the other hand looked promising. Maybe flat water was better for me anyway at this moment?
Leucate
When we arrived in Leucate I saw windsurfing everywhere: advertisements of windsurfing next to the roads and in the little village of Leucate at least three windsurfingshops around one roundabout. Windsurfing is alive here! I have been before in Leucate, more than ten years ago, and actually it didn’t change much. Only the parking spot for the campervans got more professional. Young or old, everyone windsurfs! On the windsurfingspot we parked the van in front of the lake and had a view with mountains in the background with still some snow on the top of the hills, beautiful!
We did some freestyle on the lake next days and I was pretty powered up on my small 3.4m sail. A 3.0m sail would have been nice some days, but I made a promise to myself not to windsurf anymore if I was overpowered with 3.4m because of safety reasons for my little girl.
La Franqui
Another place I really liked to be was in La Franqui. A long empty broad beach/coastline and with the off-shore wind a perfect freestyle spot. No seaweed getting stuck on the fins like some spots around the lake. Unfortunately a lot of times it was too windy for me. Eric got addicted to speedsailing on a little old waveboard (he did some custom changes on it) and his wave sail. He couldn’t catch up with the real race guys but he came close with 68.79km/h, not bad! Would be nice to try it on a real speed sailing kit one day!
La Ganguise
When the tramontane wind ended it was more than okay to relax and do nothing. After a while Eric got bored and was looking on a map of windalert. Fifteen knots South Easterly wind about 100km inwards in the main land. There was a lake close by, La Ganguise and we found a webcam of the sailing club with a view on the lake. It looked quite windy for just 15 knots and we could see some windsurfers going. We decided to give it a try.
When arriving at the lake the view was sick! The lake was blue/greenish with colored farm hills around it. I did not expect this little paradise at all! The wind was not just 15 knots, but it was super windy and I could use my small 3.4m sail again! The choppy water wasn’t’ good for slide moves but really nice for more kind of power moves.
We camped directly at the spot. The only negative thing about this spot was full on hay fever suffering for me even with the medicine.
After a week it was time to go home again. What a nice trip!
