Temperature was around freezing and we had beautiful clear skies throughout.
When we left Sunnyside Beach in the WNW wind, it was blowing 29mph with gusts to 38mph (according to Toronto Island weather station)! Wow, that's a lot of wind. In the flat offshore wind near the beach, my board was going 10kph WITHOUT paddling.
As we got further out, the swell quickly formed. It only took a stroke or two to easily get into a ride. Midway to Gibraltar Point on Toronto Island, the wind dropped to about 20+mph with gusts to over 30mph - still nice conditions. The bumps were also bigger now due to the longer fetch. I was hardly paddling and catching whatever bumps I wanted. It was novel to be riding the bumps while not breaking a sweat since the wind and waves were so good. The Starboard Ace again showed it's fantastic ability to catch and stay on bumps in downwind conditions. I've had quite a few sessions now on this board in all sorts of conditions. It's an extremely impressive board and I'll write a review of it sometime soon.
As we approached Gibraltar Point, the waves got a little bigger due to the groundswell and the stronger wind. It was actually more difficult to to ride the bumps and maintain longer glides since the faces were steeper. I would decelerate more readily as I went up the back of the following wave.
As we rounded the point, the water got flatter but there was still some decent quartering wind. Dan got some interesting wave action around the point as he was closer to shore where the waves were breaking. From the Centre Island pier to Cherry Beach was the only time I felt like I had to exert myself paddling. There was very little wind there since were were in the wind shadow of the Island, so it was typical flat water paddling the rest of the way back.
Very nice paddle overall and probably the only possible downwind route in a NW wind. Toronto Island gives us quite a few options for downwind routes that wouldn't be possible otherwise.
Kudos to Dan for doing the paddle prone. I can't imagine doing that myself.
Here's a link to a video that will give you a good idea of today's nice conditions. I took this while sitting on my board. Sorry no video while I was paddling. Camera was in my lifejacket pocket.
Some photos below:
Here comes Dan:
There goes Dan:
Nice bumps:
Beautiful late December day:
Lots of whitecaps:
CN Tower and Dan's toque tower:
Looking backwards:
Here comes a nice swell from behind. That's the tail of my board at the bottom:
Nice wave:
Dan rounding Gibraltar Point:
