The Merry Waves Of Wind Soar

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The hundred mile diet is virtually non-existent here in les Iles de la Madeleine. Even worse, I'm back, like a crack ho, on the baked goods, but only because the Madlinot understand that making pastry is an art form (think Renaissance). When I eat something freshly baked (from frozen) at Tim Horton's, I feel only remorse and cavities (think Industrial devolution).
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I had a croissant aux amandes the other day from La Fleur du Sable, an artisanal boulangerie. The pastry chef grew up in France and trained in Montreal. All of his breads are au naturel and free of sugar and other distractions. His pastries are 'to die for', but not in the Tim Horton's sense. You actually feel good eating a pastry made by proud hands that care.
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The hundred mile diet did show up yesterday morning for a few hours, but not as you might expect. The local waves were intent on munching any windsurfers within a hundred miles. We went to a beach called Corfu, named after the ship Corfu that ran aground a number of decades ago. All that remains are the faces and the names of the wives, the sons and the daughters....and also some gnarled steel that lives in and out of the waves.
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Corfu was angry yesterday. The air was a moist and frigin 11 degrees. The wind was blowing 40-50 kilometres per hour. The waves were breaking with attitude. I decided that discretion was the better part of valour, so I plunked my dumper on the sand and spent the morning photographing those who dared. There were only a handful of windsurfers who took up the challenge. Crazy Dave Cuthbertson, pictured above, was one of them. To put things in perspective, he was about 15 feet above the water in that image. The wind and waves wanted to kill him, but they were denied.
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The best windsurfer in the islands got washed hard, pinned under his sail in a Maytag maelstrom. He was hit in the face by his equipment and ended up wearing a welt on his cheek. He said that he thought he was going to die. This guy could spin circles around me on the water. I felt somewhat justified in loafing on the beach like an artisanal baguette, though perhaps, in reality, I was a Bit Timid...not quite the real thing.