Spring has sprung, daylight savings time is here and a lot of us are finally getting on the water. It's actually been fairly breezy recently - except last Saturday - and our getting on the water has meant postponing posting all sorts of crap interesting odds and ends.

Via Craig's LIst:

I will say it is a pretty small board (approx. 9'-3" long x 22" wide). It definitely takes some skill to use it as a SUP board. The buoyancy is 97 kg (~213 lbs). I weight about 155 lbs and I'm able to stand up on the board, but it took practice and a lot of stabilizing muscles. Because it's short, I would have to start off on my belly and paddle with my arms. Once I was moving, I would pop up into the standing position, similar to surfing. I needed the forward momentum to help keep my upright. It's super hard to stand up on it without at a standstill.

If you're looking for a very forgiving board, this is probably not for you. But if you're looking for a challenge, and a board that will give you a good core workout, this would be perfect.

That's right, someone has managed to convert a 107 liter board into a SUP. It wasn't easy, but,they did it. And, because they did it, you can, too, for the rock-bottom price of $250. This appears to be a Bic Vivace 282, which was Bic's first foray into the no-nose trend of the 90s. It probably did have about 97 liters of float because 10 liters of sharp nose wasn't in the water - it curled up in the front waiting to spear the bottom of your sail. It was very common to see a patch on sails then in that spot.

It's not uncommon for old windsurfers to be pressed into service as a SUP. Older transitional and long boards work okay in flat water. They are long enough, barely wide enough and dirt cheap compared to a modern SUP. If you can grab one for $100, you've saved yourself $900 if all you are doing is puttering around on a lake or pond. However, trying to paddle around on a 100 liter board (we are about the same weight as the seller) just seems like a miserable idea.

There are a lot of good windsurfing tutorials now available on the internet. If you are new to windsurfing, youtube and a variety of websites will save you the years of frustration that many of us older windsurfers endured. If we were lucky enough to find the right article in a magazine, we might have a clue on how to jibe. In our case, we did laydown jibes wrong for years because we had no idea how quickly the sail is oversheeted then brought back up. So, we swam a lot.

However, most of the tutorials are of middle-aged guys aimed at middle-aged guys. For a woman, it gives you the impression that windsurfing is a guys' thing. For a guy, it gives you the impression that tutorials are very not interesting to look at.

Shawna Cropas has a technique section on her website. A lot of the her tips are really good for those climbing the learning curve because she focuses on the subtle points of body position - those little things that make such a big "aha" difference in your windsurfing.

Shawna's web site offers a lot of good advice on those little things that take so long for us to figure out on our own. We also should mention that she sails in a more modern style with booms pretty high and harness lines pretty long compared to what windsurfers did in the past. And, her boom is touching her sail.

Yeah, she's good enough to offer you advice.

Blue Lagoon Windsurfing Resort in Egypt now offers night-time lighted windsurfing.

Atlanta can be a pretty challenging place to windsurf. Our locations are limited - realistically, you have your choice of Lake Lanier and Lake Lanier for the advanced windsurfer. The wind is often dodgy and doesn't always comply either with the forecast or our available time. And, it's the windiest when the air and water are pretty cold.

But, at least our water is... well, watery. A recent post on a Michigan windsurfing forum announced that their water is now liquid.

Lake Lansing is clear of ice

Posted ... on March 29, 2015 at 7:51am in Wind Talk

I did not check the water temperature, but the ice was gone, and there was at least one kayaker on the water. Today is forecast to be 20 knots...

And, while we are counting down the days until we can comfortably sail in a shorty or swimsuit,

The inland lakes are better than than Metro and Huron this time of year because the warmer wind often doesn't get down to the surface of the colder water.

Just got a new dry suit!

If this doesn't seem like a big deal, plunge your hand into a bucket of ice water for ten minutes and then get back to us.