Union Island - A Kitesurf Paradise

On our various trips to Brazil over the last 6 years we keep running into Ocean Rodeo team riders / promotional gurus Jeremie Tronet and Linn Svendsen. The lovely French-Caribbean / Norwegian couple have now set up their own kite centre with school in the Grenadines, mainly serving the passing yacht trade. See: www.kitesurfgrenadines.com

So knowing that this pair wouldn't settle somewhere with anything less than amazing kite conditions, we thought we might go and check it out. We shot a bit of video of Sarah kiting which you can watch below. This gives you a good idea of how good the conditions were :)

After a very good autumn/winter season in the UK the long range forecast all of a sudden looked very bleak, so we booked a cheap flight to Barbados with Mr Beardy Branson Airways, organised the transfer hop flight with Mustique Airways (thanks Keisha) who offer an excellent range of reliable winged caravans.

From above (Pic stolen from Hannah Darling)

So after some Twin Otter hi-jinx, some confused but amusing conversations at customs about what was in the huge kite bags, and the arduous hotel transfer (30 second ride on a golf buggy), in what seemed like no time at all with the time difference, we had travelled from a freezing and drizzly Gatwick to sunshine, palm trees and clear blue water. We stayed at the Anchorage Yacht Club, which mainly acts as a transfer point for luxury tourists travelling over towards the Palm Island resort. The hotel is about 100m from the kite spot and is extremely convenient. The staff are very helpful and friendly as well, and the Wifi runs as smoothly as the supply of Pina Coladas.

Not too shabby view in front of the rooms at the hotel

The wind over the duration of the trip was excellent, with 10 out of 12 days kiteable and really it was more like 11 out of 12 but one morning we were particularly hungover. The wind follows a daily pattern. It kicks in at about 8 in the morning and is at its strongest (18 - 20 knots) until around 1pm. It then has the courtesy to mellow out a bit over lunch time (although it's still rideable) to allow you to have a leisurely lunch. By 3pm it's back up to speed again, and gradually gets stronger until sunset. We quickly settled into a routine, and found an early start and a long lunch, possibly with short snooze afterwards, let you have 2 or three hours in the morning riding quite hard, and then a more relaxed sunset session before cocktail hour. As you can tell it was pretty tough over there, but we coped.

The main spot set up is very good as well, with a large lagoon protected by a reef. It's shallow and flat, and great for training, the bottom is a mixture of old coral and sand, so nothing much to bump into. You need to be confident upwind to ride here, and stay away from the airport end which is marked by some buoys. The tides are tiny, so not much to worry about there.

Wang Ping

There are very few kite spots with in-water bar/BBQ services. Happy Island was built by an enterprising local who kept dumping conch shells on the inside of the reef until there was enough reclaimed land to build a bar on. All the yacht tenders moor up there for a stunning sunset and Jeremie sometimes puts on a big air show much to the delight of the punters.

Happy Island Sunset

From a beginners point of view the best bet is to head off downwind to Frigate with the school and enjoy the huge amount of space, and boat support. If the wind switches a little more easterly (away from the normal north east) the potential for freestyle down here is spectacular. It looks like a few years ago they started building a huge dock for more boats, and they must have run out of cash and work stopped, leaving a man-made spit creating some rather tasty flat water. Running downwind to here from the centre is worth the ride just for the experience of hopping in and out of the reefs. Half way down is an enormous turquoise bottomed lagoon which is worth hanging around in for some time. Frigate island itself looks like somewhere a Bond villain might have his lair. It's extremely spectacular.

Frigate from above

Jeremie and Linn can further amuse you by organising day tours to the other islands close by. We went up to Mayreaux for a quick kite on a little reef break, and to the Tobago Cays, and stopped somewhere they filmed Pirates of the Caribbean, where a month or so back, part of a Russian space rocket washed up rather bizarrely. This was a great addition to the trip. Everyone likes messing around on boats. We finished up the day with a sunset downwinder in light wind back to Union with the boat following.

Russian space rocket anyone?

Every full moon they are running a beach party at the centre, where the whole Island comes out to enjoy some dancing, rum and night kiting. It's an eclectic mix of locals, yacht dwellers and kiters, and made for some amusing moments.

Check the moon.

Food wise, high recommendations need to be given to:

Big Citi - the local canteen diner above a yellow building in the square. This is very reasonably priced, the food is tasty Caribbean dishes like conch stew, BBQ chicken and a sandwich called the 'mumbler' which was absolutely off the chart if you are into chicken.

Captain Gourmet - Just off the square towards Ashton, this is run by local French folks, and as you would expect provides great breakfasts, bread, croissants and most importantly coffee. They also import luxury goods from France and all over the place, so if you need some champagne or confit de canard in a hurry, this is the place to come. Watch out for the chocolate muffins.

Marie's Pizza Place - Located opposite the ferry dock, Marie became our temporary mother for 12 days. Initially she wooed us with amazing seafood pizza and pasta, and then let us order what we would like the next night the day before and she would source it. This meant every night we had delicious home cooked food with a French twist. This was great compared to other small island experiences we had like in Cape Verde where the food was generally terrible.

So all in all it was an amazing trip, and very do-able for a two week holiday. A huge thanks go to Jeremie and Linn for showing us a great time and sharing their spot with us. I think we would definitely be back, the potential for waves is also very good in the right conditions, and we didn't really touch on that on this visit.

South Devon Kite Club 2011 Christmas Video

We made a very last minute video for the local kitesurf club (www.sdkc.co.uk) Christmas dinner a few weeks ago. As usual this was shot and edited in a hasty fashion, but I did actually manage to bang a tripod out for the evening and we got some nice light, even if the waves were really small, it was bolt onshore, and Sarah wasn't riding at her best! She was stacked on a 9m and strapless. I may reuse some of the footage for the English Riveira Part II, the yet to be planned or even thought about sequel. The evidence stacks up below:

BKSA Wavemasters 2011

After a fair amount ‘umming and ‘arrring and due to yours truly smashing up my gammy ankle the previous week, Sarah and I postponed our loose idea of an autumnal trip to warmer climes, and with Jet ski in tow, headed across the bridge to the BKSA Wavemasters in Cornwall. Dicky Gowers had called us a few weeks previous and asked to borrow it for safety cover. I said fine, as long as I didn't have to sit on it all week.

Jetski Phil

We arrived at our luxury static accommodation at the St Ives Bay Caravan park. It turned out to be a very topical place to be with the Dale Farm eviction going on. Still, after a little modification it was very comfortable, and after burning most of the North Sea gas reserves, it was also fairly warm. Sound proof it wasn’t. We were sharing with friends Neil and Lisa for the week, who became even more familiar by the end of the stay.

Biggies at Godrevy

Day one greeted us with bright sunshine and humungous surf . The view from the floral cushioned Horizon Contessa was pretty spectacular down towards Godrevy. Mr Vento hadn’t arrived yet, but he was scheduled to turn up before lunchtime. After the rider meeting at the Café, unsurprisingly the Girlies were on first as the wind filled in. It filled in faster than expected, and as Pro Kiteb*tch for the better half I pumped up 6, 7 and 9m PD4 kites whilst her ladyship literally crapped her way through the pre match nerves. Unfortunately disaster struck, and the council had decided not to unlock the gates to the track to Godrevy meaning the man left in charge (BKSA Vice Chairman, and all round nice guy, Pete Shaw) had to make some frantic phone calls to get the key. The competition couldn’t start until the Ski was on the beach. After an hour the gate then got opened, only for Jetski man Phil to find the access road to the beach had a chuffing great big sand dune across it.

Grinning like a winner

After all this unfortunate messing around the 11am start had turned into more of a 1.30pm start. Good conditions were being missed and it was quite frustrating. Anyway, the ladies eventually got off to a good start, with head high plus conditions with about 25-30 knots slightly side off.  Sarah’s first heat was against good friend of ours and local pocket rocket wave slayer Debbie Kennedy. Sarah didn’t ride that well, and came in a bit peeved, but made it into the next round where she was against another friend of ours, Welsh lovely Sarah Eager of Blast Kiteboarding and a plucky young Scottish lady called Sammy Wiseman. Suddenly Sarah seemed to click with the conditions, and in the relatively short 7 minute heats she scored three nice long waves with some powerful turns. This got her into the next round against Steph Bridge. For those of you not in the know, Steph is 3 x World course racing champion, and just got a 3rd place at the KSP tour (the international wave event). A formidable opponent to say the least. Sarah thought she was done for , but was pleased with her performance in her last heat and went into it quite relaxed, changing down to a 6m. She got three good waves with some nice slashy turns in the pocket, and cruised in not expecting to win. She was oblivious to the fact that Steph hadn’t had a great heat.

Cheeky session at Marazion on the way home

So much to her surprise, she had progressed to the final against Debbie. At this point she said to me she didn’t really mind who won, and again went in extremely relaxed. She worked her way out back, and took two or three quite large waves with her usual smooth style, made one very committed top turn and took a big one right on the head! She cruised in casual as a cucumber.

So after a rocky start, she won it. British Champion 2011! The key point being is that she relaxed, didn’t think about the other competitors and results and just rode.

The rest of the week was spent getting through the men’s heats which in the end ran in very small conditions. Light 1-2ft and almost bolt onshore.  It was still a good display of riding, specially the strapless guys with the top five all at a ridiculous level. The great conditions from the first day didn’t really reappear.  A jam session was held later in the week in some light but nice clean side off conditions (Sarah came second in this). This was a good laugh, and much less serious with twenty minute heats and three or four riders out at a time in quite technical conditions.
 

There has been a lot of feedback from various sides on how this event should be run in the future. I think this is a very positive thing, as the people involved are a really good group, and we have some very high level riders in the UK. It should be a showcase of talent, and definitely deserves more media coverage, sponsorship and more hands on deck to help coordinate. There has also been talk of making it a series, or running more of a jam format which takes the pressure off, and maximises time on the water. It will be interesting to see what happens. A huge thanks to Pete, Phil, Josh, Tessy and flag girl Lisa for soldiering away all week in chilly conditions.

Le Champ

Lastly the British Wavemasters was won by two South Africans, with both Sarah and Richie Sills hailing from the land of Springbok. Trevor Hale won the seniors though, and I think he’s from Devizes (Wiltshire’s hidden gem) so well done Trevor for keeping the British end up.

Lekker

The top three women were also all on 5 line kites. Funny old world isn't it?

The English Riviera - Part 1

The plan was to film on day with a good forecast and see what footage we could get.

Shot and edited in 24 hours on 8th June. Part one of the series celebrating a great summer of Kitesurfing in Devon.

UK conditions, UK riders.

Equipment:

JN Prima Donna 4 9m
JN Wild Thing 3 10m
JN Chit Chat Neo 130cm
JN Chit Chat Neo 134cm

Riders:

Jon Bleiker
Sam Lawman
Sarah Sylvester

jn-kites.co.uk
sdkc.co.uk

Australia Article 2010

Last season we had a fantastic 3 months out in Australia chasing wind and waves, and found some great spots. We wrote an article for Rou at IKSurf magazine which is below.

IKsurf magazine article

Legendary local pest Mark Dingo from Supersaturated also knocked up a fresh batch of video for us as well, located here:

JN Down Under

BKSA 2009 Swansea

The first stop of the BKSA 2009 tour in Swansea, Wales was my first freestyle competition. I threw myself straight into the deep end (in the form of the Pro Ladies’ event), and came out the other end with a 3rd place ☺

All the pros turned up for registration on Friday morning. Being my first freestyle competition I was pretty nervous and as the wind didn’t kick in until the afternoon, there was plenty of time to let the nerves get on top of me. But I had already learnt from doing a wave comp in SA that the best strategy was to just chill out with the other riders and take lots of deep breaths! When the wind finally kicked in about 4pm, it came in pretty strong, was slightly cross off and very gusty. All the Pro’s heats were completed but the finals had to be carried over to the Saturday due to a sudden drop in wind (and there was me raring to go on my 13m). Friday also saw local school kids turning up to have a go on some trainer kites. Swansea might be seeing a sudden increase in the number of young kite enthusiasts.
Photo courtesy of Tony from www.kiteboarder.co.uk
Saturday arrived along with a lot of riders turning up to register for the Amateurs freestyle, Seniors and Juniors freestyle, course racing, landboarding and buggying. With the wind blowing full force and an occasional rainstorm soaking us and the locals who had come out to see what kitesurfing was all about, riders had to keep their wits about them. The Ladies final was well underway when a threatening squall meant the judges stopped our heat. I made the mistake of being tidy and wrapping up my lines, so when the heat re-started 10 minutes later, my lines had got in a muddle which left me a bit flustered. Still it was a great experience for my first freestyle comp. Once that was over and I had warmed up in the hot showers (thanks to the event sponsors for them!) I hung around and watched the other events (and poor Rich who managed to get lost in the course racing!). Both Saturday and Sunday were very busy days with the wind blowing solidly, and there was some great kiting action in all events, although I must admit I missed some of the action on Sunday when I escaped a rainstorm by heading for a pub lunch. But I was pleased to be there to witness JN rider Pete Whiteley’s classic Deadman rendition in his heat!

Swansea was a great success for JN. As well as myself taking 3rd place, Hannah Whiteley took 1st place in the Pro Ladies, and her dad Pete Whiteley took 1st place in the Men’s Seniors. Congratulations to all the riders, and to the organisers for such a great event. Thanks to the sponsors for the live music belting out on the beach, the barbeque, the pub buffet, and a warm beanie to counteract the freezing temperatures. Oh and thanks to Aaron Hadlow for my podium winners’ kiss on the cheek. I touched greatness!