Everyone is a windsurfing instructor.

There was the first time, the very first time. I came home from freshman year at FSU, a slightly more than casual sailboat racer, only to find all three of the boats my family owned out of commision for one reason or another, and proceeded to kludge together an old O’Brien board and sail left by my uncle in the garage. Somehow, I made it to the water, where I spent the entire afternoon falling off the board while learning to uphaul. The sum of the distance I traveled that day while on a windsurfing board was probably less than 50 feet. That wasn’t the beginning of my windsurfing addiction, although a few similar sessions followed.

Our college sailing club had some old One Designs, compliments of former Olympic hopefuls like Laura Chambers, where I refined my dodgy uphaul skills to the point where I’d tell my friends, “Yeah, I can windsurf” – even when all I could do was clumsily tack back and forth, which I’d taught myself between sailing sessions on our dinghies. Then came the day when I was out single-handing one of the dinghies in a fresh breeze, thinking I was going about as fast on that boat as anybody had ever gone before. Until a real windsurfer went smoking by me on a full plane. I jibed the boat immediately, and ran it up on the beach with the sails whipping in the wind as I panic-rigged that old One Design with my heart pounding – I wanted to get out and do that so bad. Three days later, compliments of a really nice guy on the beach named Mack Paschall, I’d learned to rig a little better, and learned to waterstart (although not very well.) The true addiction was beginning.

Then there was the time after that, where I took an afternoon to drive four hours over to Sandy Point Progressive Sports in Daytona Beach, and I walked right up the shop guy (I later learned his name was Curtis) and told him what I had – a measly $1,000 scrounged together from extra shifts at the barbecue joint – and what I wanted: a newer, widestyle board, and a big rig to put on it. I’m guessing that didn’t happen very often, and they took pity on me, because, somehow, I walked out of there with a new (used) board – a Mike Zajcek-designed ProTech, about 151 liters, and rocket fast – a 9.5 Aerotech VMG, a Powerex 490 to rig it on, and a boom. Not too shabby.

By that point, I was officially addicted – and I couldn’t even jibe.

More things fells into place.

A local windsurfer, Paul Hansard, had an early-90’s Mistral Screamer he was about to sell. He had seen me down at the beach, and thought I needed my first smaller shortboard. So he gave it to me. I struggled with it, but it quickly became my favorite board, and I lay in bed dreaming of the days I could use it.

The next summer, my college buddy and I were planning a road trip up to Massachusetts. I figured if I was driving all the way up there, I’d go to Cape Cod, and bring my windsurfing gear, and camp in my truck as long as I could. So before we left I worked double shifts for two months at the restaurant till I had a few grand in my pocket, and I loaded up my truck with a now hefty collection of windsurfing gear, and headed north. My plan was to sleep in the truck and windsurf till my money ran out.

The first day out, I broke a fin on a rock. It was traumatic. A new $75 fin was going to cost me 4 or 5 days of my trip. But, I needed it if I wanted to sail at all, so I headed to the Sailworld Cape Cod to rustle one up. After twenty minutes of chatting with the owner, Jim Ballantyne, he asked me if I wanted to hang around and teach windsurfing. I told him no, my plan was to surf till I had just enough gas money to get me back to Florida. I bought the new fin, and headed out. The next day, I had my best 5.0 session ever – and quickly realized that if I worked for Jim, I could stay there and do that all summer. I marched right back into the shop, and asked for the job. That fin wasn’t the last thing I broke that summer – I got a lot better at windsurfing.

When I got back to Florida, another local sailor, Hugh Bosely, got a hold of my number, and looped me in when he and his buddies were hitting the surf. I joined them when I wasn’t heading to local windsurfing races. Hugh – who was so addicted to windsurfing, he ditched the Florida Panhandle and moved to San Francisco, is still a sailing buddy today. It was my last year of college, and by then I’d re-worked my schedule to only have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I worked mostly nights at the restaurant – although I’d pick up days shifts when it wasn’t windy.

I remember the call I got from my buddy Tom Ingram, who alerted me to the posting on windsurfingmag.com – they were looking for a new Managing Editor. I was an English major in the middle of applying to law school, but I had no idea what a Managing Editor was. What the hell, I figured. The worst they could do if I sent them a resume was ignore it.

The rest, as they say, is history.

When I look back at “how I began to windsurf”, I realized there wasn’t a moment, or person, responsible for it.

There was a lot of very lucky coincidences.

But mostly, and a lot of people that I owe – even more people that are mentioned are here. Without them, I may have never become a windsurfer. I may have never visited Oregon, Brazil, California, or Hawaii. It’s changed my life.