Saturday September 17th marked the day of the annual FunFest @ Sandy Hook organized by the New Jersey Windsurfing + Watersports Association. For the first time I attended. Despite loving all kinds of watersports and especially windsurfing, I was there to photograph the event and not as a participant. I was not quite sure what to expect, especially since the weather forecast was not great. Supposedly NE to E winds, which do not work very well for the bay side of Sandy Hook. And with the northeasterly winds it was cold, but mostly sunny. Despite these adverse conditions it was great to see so many people who made it. And not just from around the corner. All ages and genders were present, from young kids to experienced youngtimers, all enjoying windsurfing. And not only windsurfing. There were demonstrations of kite surfing, as well as clinics in SUPs (stand up paddling) and windsurfing clinics. Unfortunately the wind deteriorated even more during the day, so that the races scheduled for the afternoon ended up in just one race. Mainly for beginners, some of whom had stood on a windsurf board for the first time today, showing their new-found skills while having fun making it around the buoys one way or the other – congratulations to everybody! I hope that you got a whiff of why we are windsurfing whenever we can and that the FunFest successfully infected you with the “windsurf bug”. If you did, don’t worry, it is not lethal, in fact, for the most part it is a lot of fun. Which, I dare say we all had. Still when the time came to pack it all up, I think I can speak for all of us, we were quite happy to sit in our warm cars.
A big thank you to the organizers from the NJ Windsurfing + Watersports Association, the ones I met (Tom, Brian, Jeff and Barbara) and anyone else involved. I am sure it helps our sport. Well done.