VANCOUVER ISLAND WINDTALK

Heading to Long Beach for a few days. Has anyone got any tips for kiting this area for "intermediate" and "advanced-beginer" levels? We will be staying at Cox Bay.

I lived in Tofino for a couple of years, windsurfed long beach a good few times, and kited there less. On a northwesterly, its GUSTY!! A better bet is Combers beach, which usually has a fast downwind current to the south of the litle river, but stay upwind of it, and you should be ok. Also theres way fewer 'inocent bystanders' walkin around ther too. I found middle/north chestermans to be the windiest place on most NW days, so check there too, and Cox can be good, but theres a bit of a windshadow in the corner by the hotels. Enjoy!

I think the next few days may be a VERY good time to be at long beach. The incomming high pressure system is strong and well positioned to generate north west wind on the coast for what might be the entire rest of the week. I think I might have to join you. Of course, the weather can always do something weird, especially if too much cloud blows ashore and shuts down the daily heating cycle. Spots: Frank Island seems to be about the windiest place in the Cox/ Chestermans area, so hang out there if you need more wind.(Frank Island is the little semi-detached thing that separates north and south Chestermans beaches.) The south side will have small waves and smooth water, which is great, but it's a very crappy place to drop your kite and blow into the rocks or the surf in Cox bay. The north side blows nearly straight onshore with very mushy surf, sometimes a struggle to get outside, but totally safe. Cox bay can be good too, but will have bigger surf than either Chestermans. All of these places can be very gusty. Futher south there is generally less wind. Wickanninnish (sp?) blows a bit too onshore, and the main parking lot at the rock is a bit too offshore, which makes the middle near Combers the best exposure for side-/side-on wind. The surf will be bigger there too, and there's a lot of longshore current , but even if you have to run back up the sand it's still fun. Some people get spooked out by the presence of the sea lion colony and the likelyhood of sharks ( I'm not kidding) but that's another story. It's a good spot, have fun!

Thanks Grant! Lots of detail here!

Long Beach for South east
Middle Chesterman's for Northwest(ride onshore north orside-off south)

Hi Grant,

I've been linked here with similar questions about windsurfing. Lot's of info you're puting out. Thanks! But..............let's here about the sharkies please, bettter to be knowledgeable than surprised.

A few years ago I posted this story at coastalbc.com..use the linke, or read below it.

http://www.surfingvancouverisland.com/kayak/st11d.htm


I was just looking through some of the other pages on the site, and so much of it is great and interesting. I looked at some of the shark stories from the Long Beach area, and actually have one to report myself, though I was surfing in a 17 foot sea kayak at the time.

I remain to this day convinced that the shark in this story was a great white, though I have no other witnesses, only the Pacific Rim National Park warden who related to me that one had been sighted in the area. I was practising surf landings at combers beach just south of long beach, on a day that was bringing in many frequent sets of eight foot average waves, and getting dumped a lot as it was my first time in these conditions. My kayak has no front bulkhead, only a rear one just behind the seat, and an airfilled nosebag to keep the boat buoyant from bow to stern in the event of capsize. I was making good use of these features not knowing that I was making a crucial mistake in the fact that the nose bag was not secured to the boat except by friction.

On a particularly large wave I capsized as it picked me up to an almost vertical position even before the curl reached over and began to impact. I was out of the boat so quickly that the curl actually rammed water into the bow of the boat, forcing the airbag out with almost explosive speed. The kayak had not yet seen the worst of this wave but I had definitely seen something just prior to the capsize that had caught my attention like a train coming right at me.

In the surf zone and in a very buoyant unloaded 17 foot kayak, the view directly ahead changes either up and down every few seconds. Half the time I could see the back of a wave, and the other half I could see above them, and the first thing that caught my attention was a sealion who seemed to be in an unusual position with respect to the water. His body position as I remember sparked something in my mind that I seemed to recognise was not physically right. He immediately disappeared as I did behind the next wave, but again on the next wave he seemed unreal somehow, and then on the next I saw why. A very large fin in the same water location was visible to me, and it gave off a feeling of strength that I have never encountered before. It was like solid steel, with the power of a train as I said before, heading in my direction. Again on the next wave I saw the fin and then my boat began its capsize. The boat was pointing from the vertical toward the bottom when the water forced the airbag out and filled the nose with water, so when the now sinking bow hit the bottom with the wave pushing hard on the stern pointing up, the boat broke in two. I was in the water and I knew somehow that the bottom was just inches below my feet. There was a huge drag against my efforts to move toward shore, as I had grabbed the bow handle and was trying to save the remains of my kayak. I kicked and kicked until the first big toe met sand, then kicked some more until my whole foot had made contact.

The whole event happened so coincidentally with the shark, the capsize, and the breaking hull, that my mind had been totally focused on salvaging myself and hull to the shore because it was so close. This somehow saved me from connecting with the reality that I was in the water with a huge shark, and he in fact had been closer to shore than I before I capsized.

If I had known any fear I am sure I would have been like a magnet to the steel of that shark, because as I have heard sharks can detect an electric signal so tiny that if you put an AA battery in the water with the positive end in New York and the negative in Miami, some sharks can read the voltage. I would have been giving off a lot of volts if I had been scared. Fortunately for me a sealion may have been the meal of the moment, and I did not have a second of fear, because I was so busy. Later, when all of those fleeting images came into their correct order in my mind, I was very very glad to be back on shore!

Every second of that story is true, believe me. There are gw sharks occasionally in the area of long beach, and they DO go near shore!

Roger

Wow Roger, good story! Combers just has that kind of sharky feeling, and your encounter adds more proof to all the rumours. The spot has all the right ingredients: small river, offshore rocks and sea lion haul-out spots, current... Which is a drag, because it's a really good spot to kiteboard. On the other hand, you've got a way bigger chance of smashing your car on the way there, might as well not worry about the occasional big fish!

www.surfingsights.homestead.com

OK you have MY attention!! The second link worked for the very scary photo, [the first link only went to the home page and then it's a bunch of join type stuff.........]

Is that photo for real? At Tofino or are just playing with us? I've seen that very one in a "blue water" scene but he wet suit has me thinking this is a closer location............

This was in Ars-tralia. Same ocean though.

Just back from Tofino wrote: www.surfingsights.homestead.com

it could be a dolphin or porpoise in that photo .... but still, be carefull out there dude!