I love heading to the Oregon Coast. It’s windy, wavy, beautiful, rugged and wild. In the spring I did a few weekend trips to Newport, conveniently camping at South Beach State Park, which is right at the windsurf spot. Newport is a convenient wave spot for Gorge windsurfers because it’s only 3.5 hours drive from Hood River. Grab a buddy and make a day trip out of it like I did with my Toronto Windsurfing Club buddy Max Robinson, or pitch a tent at the campground and stay a few days. I’ve had perfect days where I woke up to camping breakfast and coffee, surfed glassy waves on my Starboard 8’2 Widepoint SUP , made lunch back at the campsite only to return to the beach with howling 4.0 winds! Last weekend my girlfriend and I joined a group of Canadians and sailed Agate Beach (10 minutes North of Newport), surfed at Newport on Sunday morning, then mountain biked at Alsea Falls! These are the weekends we live for!
While many Oregon Coast spots are side-onshore, Newport offers side shore or even side off winds. The beach wraps a bit, so the closer you move up to the jetty, the more offshore the wind direction. The closer you get to the jetty the smaller and cleaner the waves too. This is convenient if you have a partner getting into wave sailing like my girlfriend Kelsey, who enjoyed the cleaner and smaller wave option closer to the jetty. She enjoyed the coast even more a few weeks later after we got her some booties 😉 After all, even in the summer the water is only around 14 degrees C. Good brain freeze temperature!
Interestingly the further South you go on the Oregon Coast, the colder the water gets. When it was time for the IWT Pistol River Wave Bash in late June, I packed up a van with my Polish Hood River buddy Rafał Leonczuk and headed down to meet my brother Tom Soltysiak and his girlfriend Maria Andres near Gold Beach. We joined them on a beautiful campsite at Huntley Park overlooking the Rogue River for a week of campfires, grilling, competing, and getting our brain freeze on in the cold Pacific Ocean.
The conditions were great for the contest, I sailed mostly on my 3.7m Sailworks Revolution, Starboard UltraKode 76 and Makani Fins Walu 2 17cm with 11cm side fins. It’s my favorite wave sailing set-up!
I advanced 2 rounds before losing in a close heat to my friend from Jericoacoara, Brazil, Edvan de Souza. Although it’s not my best result at Pistol River I’m pretty stoked because I managed to connect some shakas on the wave with a few turns, and I managed to land good backloops and pushloops in all my heats. My brother Tom did well to win his first heat against Sean Aiken putting together some nice stalled fowards, cheese rolls, and wave rides, but then he also lost in the 3rd round and ended up tied with me in 7th place.
Tom’s girlfriend Maria Andres did well to take 3rd place in the women’s, and my travel buddy Rafał finished in 13th last place in the Amateur class. It was his first wave contest and he claims he would have done better if he knew you had to milk the white water all the way up to the sand after every wave 😉
We all had a great time camping at Pistol River. The routine for the contest week was: 3 rounds of morning french press coffee, breakfast, toast on the campfire, windsurf and compete down at Pistol River, and return for the evening campfire and grilling dinner.
Back to reality, I just landed in Maui for the US Slalom Nationals. That’s right, I flew to Maui with only slalom boards! Crazy isn’t it? Well, time to get down to Kanaha and rig for the races! When I get back to Hood River it’s straight into the final double header of the Gorge Cup Race Series too! After all this racing it will be time to pitch a tent on the Oregon Coast and catching some refreshing waves!
