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Wednesday things got serious. The Mistral was blowing with force 7, cross offshore, gusty, meeting 2m, pretty chaotic waves. The sun was shining but air temperatures of about 5 degrees made things a bit harsh. We waited until the late afternoon, until we went out. Waves had almost completely vanished due to the side-offshore direction of the wind. It was still bloody cold. I rigged my 4.2 and went for a half hour survival session. This was not what we came for. Mistral was the wrong wind for this place, what we needed was the Tramontana. For those who don´t know what I´m talking about:
Misteral is that cold wind that comes screaming down the Rhone river, usually ignited by a low close to Genova. Once the Mistral reaches the Rhone delta, it feathers and bends to the east, loosing strength the further east it gets. It blows strongest close to the delta, but comes side-offshore here and doesn´t create any wind swell near the delta. The further east you get, the more wind-swell can be found, often providing nice surf conditions at the coast of Ligure and Toskana.
The Tramontana comes screaming down the Pyrenees, blowing offshore at the Costa Brava, but having a significant fetch on the Mediterranean Sea allows it to create decent west wind swells. When these West swells reach the area of Carro and either the Mistral or the Tramontana or a combination of both are blowing you get some of the best wave-sailing conditions of the Med.
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