St-Jean Baptiste 2023

This has to be the quietest St-Jean I have EVER seen. Okay, I have only lived in La Belle Province for the last 40 years of my life, but that has to count for something :-)

There were a number of reasons for this "tranquility".

For one thing, there was the rain, which can put a damper on things lol

However, FAR more serious was the smoke from the forest fires up north !! 

It was SO BAD that there was an "article"/post suggesting that Montreal had the worst/wurst air on the entire planet.

Worse than ANY industrialized, uncontrolled Chinese city !! 

Suddenly people were speaking about "air quality" and when is it safe to go back outdoors? People were still riding bicycles, motorbikes and convertibles with the top down !?!? (I like to see girls on bicycles with their tops down lol --> Like the Queen poster)

We discovered websites like iQair and spoke about AQI and PM2.5 units lol

On the 25th and 26th of June, my town was OVER 200 AQI which is apparently DANGEROUS - and NOT just for people with health issues !?! By the 27th the values were under 50 !!! which is considered completely safe

Here is a pic of the sun from our town when the sky was fulla smoke !!!

I have added the iQair site as a shortcut in the weather links on this "blog"

A Windsurf Sail that Folds in Half ??

Just when you thought there was NO "new stuff" ...

On Saturday June 3rd, 2023 I went out to OKA and tried to windsurf in what I call "overpowering conditions". Someone said,"Phew!! Je pense qu'il y a 30 noeuds l'autre bord!"

So, I went to La Crête and practiced water starts all the while trying to stay in the shallows.

When I got off I saw a dude taking this out of his SUV:

It did NOT look like a kite kit, wingfoil or ???
What kinda animal is this ??

Apparently RRD have had this foldable sail out since about three years:

For me it is surprising that this concept has NOT been attempted before.
The only thing I noticed was the loose leech is shallow waves at the top.

The mast was also in 5 pieces ...

https://www.windsurf.co.uk

Dude says VoilOKA sells them & probably are supplied from windspirit. At VoilOka the mast and boom compact kit is $1244 + 15% tax. This does NOT include ANY sails, which are $850 + tax each. Way over $2000 for a 6-oh ?? WoW

How about wind-spirit ?? HD compact kit is $650 + tax and PRO is $1500 + tax. However, these look like sale prices !! and the 5-oh is $570 + tax on sale ..

Once upon a time ... there were these MultiSails where you added pieces to make the sail larger. Obviously that never took off. But reduction of storage and transport space has always been something to consider. However, I will NOT become a fan of inflatables !!!