AFTER HOURS

WHEN THE WORKDAY IS OVER

Surfing the Wind

As a boy growing up in Seattle, Michael Wolfe wanted a sailboat. He loved to sit on the shore of the Puget Sound and watch the beautiful vessels gracefully and quietly skim across the top of the emerald water.

But those boats were expensive, and way out of the budget. So, he found a more affordable option: windsurfing.

When he was twelve years old, his parents told him that a job was forcing the family to pack up and move to a little town in California called San Luis Obispo. It was not long after his family had settled before Wolfe began searching around, asking about windsurfing in the area. He was told to go find someone named Richard Crowe at Lopez Lake. The first two or three sessions were rough for Wolfe, as he struggled mightily against an unpredictable wind. After seeing the enthusiasm of the young windsurfer, Crowe approached him and offered some advice, and gave him his phone number, which the tight-knit windsurfing community at Lopez Lake considers a rite of passage.

Today, during his workday, Wolfe owns and operates a computer and networking consultancy he calls Good Electrons. He likes to joke that he is “non-denominational” since he works on both Macs and PC’s. But, from May through September, when the conditions are right, and the wind is blowing just so, he can be found out at Lopez Lake along with around twenty other hardcore windsurfing enthusiasts from the Central Coast. “There is even an architect out there who works out of his RV next to the lake waiting for the wind, which is so fickle,” shares Wolfe. “It can be blowing just right at 10am or at 3pm. You just have to be ready for it.” SLO LIFE [ CATCHING AIR Michael Wolfe during a recent trip to Rio Vista on the Sacramento River Delta ]