When I come to France, I could only take two sails: 3.7 and 4.2. To conclude this 4-day trip in Southern France, another day of windsurfing with strong wind at the Plage de la Coudouliere.

Windsurfing, session report: La Coudouliere (France), 28 April 2019, with Mistral

Sunday morning, I got up aching from the lactic acid accumulated in the previous days and I said to myself: today I don't even enter the water ...

Then, a good breakfast woke me up well, and restored my strength.

At 9.00, I was already in the parking lot of the spot, to find a place close to the beach.

The wind, after the night's storm, was still quite strong. I rigged the Ezzy Elite 4.2 2017 without many doubts, and prepared the Fanatic Quad 87 TE 2013, set with the fins a bit backwards to make it glide first. As predicted by the forecasts, compared to yesterday, wind more from NW. At 10.00, I entered the water with the GoPro on the helmet.

I have ridden  for 50 minutes in the water, enjoying a lot. I believe the Coudouliere should be exploited early in the morning. Relatively calmer wind, and less people in the water, with the possibility of enjoying the waves better.

The sail turned out to be right for me, and the wind was constant. I made some good jumps trying to bring the bow of the board as high as possible (to get closer and closer to the first loop attempts). I caught and surfed even some waves (nice to be on the same wave with others, if not too many), which were quite beautiful near Cap Negre, although, in my opinion not as amazing as yesterday (read report). Today, being smaller, the waves needed narrower bottom-turns to look for the lip again, but I don't have these automatisms yet, and I often stopped 5 meters ahead of the wave after the bottom.

The wind then started to be a little unstable, with some moments in which it blew from the West. In order not to get myself tired unnecessarily, I took a break. I met Stefano Brugnola, a very good italian photographer on the spot, who immortalized the day.

I also took the opportunity to go up to Cap Negre to take photos and videos, going down almost to sea level, to be as close as possible to the action.

After refreshing myself a little, I returned to the water around at 1 pm. The wind was stronger, as expected in the central hours. But in my opinion it was unstable, and this also made the sea, especially, in front of the cliff of the port, quite chaotic. Moreover, on the way back to Cap Negre, in some situations, the wind rotated so much from the North (therefore, in the face), or got too low. Obviously, the N/NW direction made it easy to get out to sea. Moreover, in the vicinity of Cap Negre, the wind bounced and increased dramatically, causing the sail to always be full in the descent of the wave. After an hour, fatigue reappeared, and I decided to close the session, also because to stay at sea I would have to rig the 3.7 again. But having to go back to Milan, I didn't want to exaggerate. However, today, I never said I could stay in the water so much.

I put the car in order, I had a nice hot shower at the Harbor, and after looking at the sea one last time with melancholy, I got in the car, and I started the way back ... .

Below you have a short selection of photos taken on the spot.

Enjoy the entire spectacular slidegallery of the day calmly by clicking here (low resolution photos are free; high resolution photos are available upon payment of a small contribution to Waterwind - free for Waterwind Supporters).

Hang loose. Fabio

The video of the day