Blogs

Most people who are familiar with Bonaire are either avid divers or windsurfers. Or cruise ship passengers. Others who have heard about this small island north of Venezuela reside in the area or in the Netherlands. Together with a handful of other small Caribbean islands, it was part of the Netherlands Antilles until recently. On 10/10/10 Bonaire became an integral part of the Dutch Kingdom, together with Saba and St. Eustatius (Statia), while Curaçao and St. Maarten separated and became new countries.

 Almost every day a big cruise ship docks in the beautiful waters of Bonaire                 © Liesbet Collaert

The tri-island area Bonaire, Curaçao and Aruba is referred to as the ABC-islands, but much more than starting with the first three letters of the alphabet they don’t have in common. Curaçao is big, industrial and diverse, Aruba is very touristy and gears to an American market and Bonaire is most famous for its fantastic diving and environmental approach. It is a watersports paradise, whether you explore underneath the water surface or skim on top …

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Competitors are already training hard for our local event. Come and see some of the best regional and international kiteboarders and windsurfers compete for freestyle and race crown.

Lots of prizes to be won, as always the party scene at night will be pumping....

see you there!

Despite the economic crisis the community of Vassiliki and the local Chamber of Commerce is determined to press ahead with their longer term plan to have the Vassiliki Watersports Festival eventually become a major feature on the International sailing circuit.

This year, because of financial difficulties, the Festival will be a little smaller than in previous years but will still be a fantastic event!

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Dear friends!

It is day five of our first-ever boot Duesseldorf show, and although the team is getting pretty tired and we still have five days to go, this has been an amazing experience, and we are confident that we will be coming back next year.

There are posts about events, the coolest exhibits, and new firends joining us coming up very soon. For now, if you are in the neighborhood, and still haven't visited, drop by our little mobile office in Hall 15, Stand A 31.

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It’s an ongoing joke here that the UK has a reputation amongst the rest of the world for just being wet and dreary most of the time.  And I’d be lying if I said that the reputation wasn’t justified.  We tend to have long periods (especially this time of year) when low pressure systems sit over the bulk of the UK and it is, well, wet and dreary!  We’re are fairly lucky in one respect though – the Gulf Stream (a warm water current that ebbs up this way) keeps our climate artificially warm (we’re on the same latitude as Canada for instance – and Canada’s pretty chilly in winter I hear!).

Whereas much of the UK seems to wallow in the dreary weather, however, Cornwall (the very western tip of England) tends to feel more like the front line in the UK’s never ending war with the Atlantic Ocean – in short: we get a lot of weather!  At this time of year, when low pressure systems tend to rampage from Central America all the way through to the North Sea, Cornwall plays a daily game of roulette with mother nature, with some pressure systems staying out to the west (generally giving us great surf), but many clattering straight into Cornwall.  Which generally makes for very wet weather.... But also very windy weather – and who cares if it’s raining when you’re out on the water?

A classic day?

So, last Friday morning having been checking ‘the guru’ all week, I knew that we had a very deep low pressure system heading our way and that – even by English standards – we were in for some serious weather: happy days!  With the van pre-loaded as ever with three kites and three surfboards, I left home expecting to check a few spots and get in for either a sheltered-from-the-wind surf, or for a kitesurf at one of the 10 or so beaches within half-an-hour of here.

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It’s like riding a bicycle… not quite

After a month of settling in, friends’ and relatives’ visits, and all kinds of otherwise unfavorable circumstances (those of you who saw me in Prague in June and remember my cough – well, apparently that does not combine well with swimming and air conditioners), I finally set foot on the board this week. Quite literally, one foot.

I am learning the beach start, you see. After a two-year gap in my windsurfing, for the first several days I bravely decided to do it without a teacher, just to get the feel of the board and remember what I already knew. Fair enough, except my newly bought board is a 125-liter Fanatic Shark, considerably smaller than the 147-liter Hifly Matrix I climbed off two summers ago. It might have worked just fine in lower wind, if I had lost the 5 kilos I was planning on before summer, but thanks to fabulous Greek bakeries… oh well, there is just no way of climbing on that thing in the strong Vassiliki afternoon wind to haul up the sail the “beginner” way. Hence, the beach start.

The most important screw ever and how to hold a rig without holding it

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Ze Austrian police, bikers, and the albino duck

So, the day has come, we packed our things, and... oh, wait, that was five days ago.

In fact, the past week has been like one big roller-coaster. First, our car was transformed from a normal city-style SUV into a bad-ass Fishmobile (see pictures). We love it so much that we decided to take pictures of it wherever it went.

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