Wednesday, May 13, 7:30 a.m.  I struggle painfully to my feet and look out the window.  Three of the past four days have presented our TBC assemblage with sub-5.0, sub-60 degree conditions, and today will be no exception.  In fact, I realize as I struggle into my wetsuit that the wind is angrier
than ever.  I'll be rigging that 3.7 as flat as I can get it today.  The wind is so strong that of our twenty person TBC crew, only Charlie Buckner and I have appropriately small gear.  Charlie reports that many of our party have headed in search of high wind gear and will be back to join us
later in the day.  (Note: never have I seen so much new gear purchased in a single week - the shops have to be missing us big-time now that we're back home!)  We head to the water while a mixture of caffeine and adrenaline struggles to generate the blood flow requisite for survival.  As the wind tries to wrest board and sail from my grasp, I hear Charlie bellow over the howling wind: "This is why we're alive!!"  Sure it is, if you can jibe like Charlie.  The rest of the day is a blur of  white-knuckle reaches, some awkward jibes (mostly mine), some beautiful jibes (mostly Charlie's), spectacular wipeouts, and watching fellow-TBC member and human-highlight-film sailor Pete McGonagle soar overhead in 40+ mph gusts.  (Pete was sailing with friends from an adjacent house.  Still, whenever we were watching the tapes of the day's sailing and someone asked "who
was that ?!", chances are it was Pete providing the show). Yes, TBCers, we had a lot of wind for our annual spring trek to Hatteras this year. Five of our seven days called for a 5.0 or smaller (usually smaller) for this 155lb. sailor. Small boards, small fins, small sails, and thick wetsuits
were the call as a wicked low pressure system spun and spun just off the coast.  The sound was
a mass of whitecaps, and the ocean…well, the overwash kept a lot of oceanside renters from
driving to or from their houses for several days. Every day for four days straight, the forecasters
claimed that tomorrow, they promised, the low would move off and bring calmer winds and sunny
skies in its wake. Frankly, although we were loving the wind, we were so beat that we actually welcomed the sun and flat water that finally appeared on our last day of sailing. The day was especially welcome for the beginners on our trip, who had seen only one previous day during the week that was at all hospitable to a long board.  Bob Bargamin in particular improved noticeably on that last day, and by the afternoon was comfortably beach-starting and using his harness (though we'll miss the catapults, Bob!). This year's trip was truly a trip of "mosts". Most sailors, most
first-time trip participants, most houses rented, most wind, most new equipment purchased, most
cold, most calluses, most fun!  I'd love to mention all of our sailors' individual highlights, but then this
article would be way too long. Suffice to say that I hope and believe everyone who came had a
great time and returned with more than a few memories of personal bests.  Be there next year!