Tarifa 2010 four years later

Tarifa, on the Spanish coast of the Gibraltar strait, will always be a special place for me. This medieval town, right where the Atlantic Ocean joins the Mediterranean Sea is the first serious place where I sailed. In 2006, my brother Carly, a hardcore windsurfer who is as nuts about the sport as anybody else, invited me to Tarifa to go windsurfing. By then I had not stepped on a board in my whole life, so I learned the basics on the Charles river in Boston,  and off I went to Tarifa, whithout knowing: a. how to waterstart; b. how to put my feet on the straps; c. how to use a harness. What followed was one of the most incredible trips I have done; sufficient is to say that I have not stopped sailing since then.

Carly's rig: Mistral Synchro 90L and Ezzy wave Panther 5.5... Thanks bro!!!!

Spin Out gear rental and the bar/lounge for post-sesh relax

Gotta love Ezzy sails!!! That 5.5 handled some pretty tough gusts...
ANYWAY, last month I went back to Spain to visit Carly, his wife Lula and their twin daughters, Olivia and Elena. As much as we tried to arrange a trip to Tarifa, work schedules were conspiring against us. While I was in Madrid, Carly, who as any other normal person, checks the weather forecast every 30 minutes, found that it was going to blow in by mid week, and in an action only understood by a windsurfer, he and Lula gave me their car, and Carly's gear and said: GO. And so I went. I drove the 8 hours from Madrid to Tarifa across Spain, an amazing road trip, but that's another story... At some point, when you reach Malaga, you can hear radio stations in English (Gibraltar is a british colony), French, Arab (Morocco is just across the stait), and Spanish. That gives you an idea of thte place where you're going to launch, a place where geography, cultures, and WIND clash...
As you can see, I can go on and on about Tarifa, so I'll just show a few pics and let you discover it for yourself... If you want to know more, just find me at the beach and ask "Hey, how was Tarifa?"

What to rig? These guys are totally spoiled by the way, 5.5 is big stuff for them. C'mon!!!

Some of the locals started to show up by noon...

East wind, also known as "Levante", can get pretty gnarly