welcome Rob!!!

good luck with teaching windsurf to your fiancee!! this usually leads to some heated arguments on the beach!!!

It is really hard to teach someone that you are emotionally attached to.
It is a mix between
- she doesn't want to fail as she then feel like she's the worst ever and you would probably prefer to have another fiancee that is a windsurf champion already.
- you (deep down) want her to progress faster than anyone else
- she thinks you are too impatient, directive..and she can't hear what you are saying anyway, or that you are shouting and she could hear you (no need to shout!!)
- you are maybe not as tolerant when she doesn't understand or succeed

Best thing:
few classes with a windsurfing instructor, or change between time when you teach her, time when you leave her on her own (when it is safe obviously) and time when maybe a mate of yours teach her ( and be ready for the : "he's a lot nicer than you when he teach me")

seeya on the water!!!

yep saw that from both sides:
used to be a sailing/windsurfing instructor and also tried teaching girlfriends and then fiancee...

Excellent, thanks for that Qwerty.

I have now gone and suggested the idea about paying for 5 hours of lessons at Balmoral with an instructor before we go away. Yes, you guessed it.... and I quote "I do not want to be taught by a stranger, I want you to teach me".

WHAT HAVE I GOT MYSELF INTO AM I DOOMED FOREVER...

Hi,

it`s always good to have your girl windsurfing as well.
A very good spot is 50km north of Port Stephens,
on east side of Smiths Lake: it`s called Lake Side cafe,
they have Instructors, good gear to hire(if you don`t have your own gear),
water depth of 0.8m for at least 300m, grassy rigging area under palms ,food and drinks. Beautifull landscape.... if there`s no wind go surfing on the
beach which is 500m away...
....
Lake Side Cafe
Street:the Lakes Way,
20km south of Forster/Tuncurry
(close to Bootie Bootie National Park)
regards A.

Excellent,

I live in Manly so Narrabeen is actually really convenient. I drove up to Pittwater side of Palm beach last week Friday and from the shore Pittwater/Palm beach did seem slightly more consistent and there were 3 guys out there having loads of fun. It was also fairly shallow so also idea for teaching (I guess it all comes down to the direction of the wind).

For our weekend trip, just checked the Winda Woppa site out and we are planning to head off for the long weekend at the end of January and they do not seem to have any trips planned for that weekend.

My plan now is to rent equipment from the windsurf shop in Collaroy and then try to find a decent camp site around Port Stephens or Smiths Lakes area (preferable on a shore that you can sail from). Have either of you ever camped up in these areas, could you recommend any camp sites, or even just a website that I can use to see what's available?

On the kit side of things, hopefully I can get my hands on the basic set up this weekend

Cheers,
Rob

If you're interested in heading south, St George's Basin, and Jervis bay would be good for learning and flat water blasting. Keep going and you may stumble on some fantastic coastal lakes south of Batemans Bay.