Floras Lake is South Coast, Oregon where the wind blows, it seems, most days of the year. The lake sits adjacent to the ocean, just spaced by a beach and sand dunes. It’s a magnificent destination for wind and water sport enthusiasts such as kite boarders, wind surfers, and ‘Wingers’. Just south of the lake is Cape Blanco and there are many trails that link the two for hiking and terrific mountain biking.

Steve introduced me to this location because of his Kite Boarding enthusiasm. The ocean is just past that sand dune behind Steve and the wing. If you’ve been to the Oregon Coast in the summer, you are probably familiar with our ‘exfoliating’ Northwest winds that blow some powerful knots, somewhat knocking down any chance of romantic beach picnics and such.

One uses the wing like a sail to harness that wind energy. Once you get going, with enough speed and energy, the foil lifts the board out of the water and all that board friction goes away. Now one can effortlessly glide along like a magic carpet ride over the water. Pretty amazing!

After dozens of sessions of Winging on the beach with a mountain board, it’s time to try my hand at the water with the foil. You may ask; ‘why not just do it at the beach?’. My answer would be ‘because that surf is heavy!’. Still waters is a good nursery for learning and I was so eager this morning. Sure enough, the wind was perfect for me so getting up wasn’t a problem. I was even able to head upwind, just didn’t levitate the board off the water, that’ll be for next time. Stoked!