THIS IS WHAT I LIVE FOR
50 knots @ Ile Sainte-Marguerite, 22/12/2019

On the Cote d’Azur we had 2 very good November and December 2019 with about 25 windy days in 2 months (2 days with 5.3, 2 days with 3.7 and the other ones between 4.7 and 4.2).

Announced few days in advance, a beautiful storm has hit Ile Sainte-Marguerite, in front of Cannes (FR) on 22/12/2019, the second swell in the same week.

In the morning at breakfast while watching the latest forecasts and thinking about Santa Claus, I got the message that @ patricksurf888 would have been taking pictures on the island all day.

2 sessions for me: the first from 10:00 to 13:00 with an initial wind around 40 knots which slowly decreased until I returned to the parking just floating, the second from 14:00 to 16:00 between 45 and 55 knots, always with 3.7 and 75 liters.

By now tired I had no more control or strategy but in the lucidity of always having to ensure my safety I enjoyed this total immersion in the wild nature.

@Patricksurf888 took 1200 photos. I had never met Patrick before and before the end of my first session I landed a few minutes on the island to have a chat with him.

Patrick: “I was windsurfing but I had to stop because of my back. Now thanks to photography I feel in action exactly as if I was sailing. I have only been taking pictures as a passionate amateur for three years. I teach literature at university, but a French photographer wrote: “Photography is the literature of the eye”. I combine the old passion for windsurfing with that of writing. But not only for windsurfing but for all that is beautiful.”

 

Ezio: “I like a lot when people mix their original experiences with windsurfing and more and I like people who have their own spiritual path to explore.
What guides me today is verticality, this sensation in certain experiences that elevates the spirit to touch the divine for a few seconds, which must be similar to your search for beauty, I think. This is what I live for!”

 

Patrick: “The real surprise is knowing how to wait for the unexpected. And it is the passion for the sea and the wind that made us complicit on this stormy Sunday. I think that’s what implicitly united us. A personal mystic in search of an absolute through beauty, the search through nature and its elements for unity lost. Maybe this Sunday was a time of celebration and a state of grace.”

A huge THANK YOU to Patrick Hubner for giving us all his day on the island with a big smile, a lot of passion and a lot of enthusiasm.