My friend Wilko is visiting me from Berlin for a good week. For most of the week, the Scirocco blasted along at 18 to over 30 knots. On one day, it even reached a top speed of 46 knots. Definitely too much for our smallest kites. On the other days, we test all the spots in the northern lagoon of Lo Stagnone. On the few windless days, we toured western Sicily.
We start the first session at Wind, Water & Wine. The spot is run by the lovely Austrian Lena. It’s easy to set up on the grass. As with most other spots, there is no infrastructure. The only bars are in front of the kitesurfing resort – and all of them are still closed. You pay five euros a day at Lena. Carry your kite to the water’s edge, launch and head out onto the water. There are no dangers here apart from a few cacti on the narrow beach and a clearly visible rock in the water.
With a scirocco from the south, it is easy to get into the cover of the offshore island of Santa Maria – but once you have crossed over, there is also a wonderfully mirror-smooth flat water area in the lee of the island. It’s still pretty quiet on the water before Easter, with only 20 kiters out. I head out further and round the whole island once. The tour almost goes wrong. As soon as I’m as far away from the starting spot as possible, the Scirocco suddenly starts to weaken. In the evening, some of the locals confirm this: firstly, the Scirocco can be very violent and secondly, it can suddenly fall asleep completely. You simply have to wait and always be ready.
On the second day, we start slightly north of the kite school centre. At the narrowest point in Lo Stagnone, there are now a whopping ten schools lined up on 500 metres of beach. You can only start for free in the low season. Every bottom is leased. The further north you go, the shallower the water becomes – great for big airs, but you shouldn’t mess anything up here. The bottom is soft and muddy everywhere. There are few rocks, but there are plenty of sea anemones to make your feet itch. With bumpy winds of up to 30 knots, I hurl myself into the Woo Leaderboard with a good eight metres today.
I’m grateful for the day of calm afterwards. The first few days of kiting after Covid never get enough air into my lungs. We jump in the car and set off without any big plans. Oh, a mountain! A small road that’s closed? Nothing there. Up we go! At the top, we find ourselves in the medieval town of Erice without even realising it. One of Sicily’s tourist hotspots wakes up yawning from hibernation – but almost everything is still closed. We have the whole town almost to ourselves.
The police stop us on the way north. There are generally quite a lot of controls here – and the speed limits are probably the lowest in the world. On a straight ten-metre-wide country road through the pampas with nothing but wild rubbish tips on either side, you are slowed down to 40 km/h for dozens of kilometres.
San Vito Lo Capo in the far north is also still in hibernation. Almost all the restaurants and bars are still closed. Few tourists wander through the alleyways. The beach is filled with tonnes of fresh sand. When the wind blows from the north and outside the main season, kitesurfing is allowed here. Given the great waves, this is definitely still on the to-do list. Clouds drift over red mountains glowing in the sunset, almost like in Cape Town.
The next day, the wind finally shifts to the west. My favourite spot is www.kitelagune.at in the far north because of the good shallow water. It’s a few hundred metres away from the hustle and bustle of the many kite schools in the centre. My second car here is a Citroen C3. The SUV is the perfect fun vehicle for the bumpy journey over off-road tracks. One guest sinks his car cleanly into 30 cm deep mud ruts on the very first day. We free it and set it up.
It’s very cold this spring. On some days the temperature drops to 12 degrees. Together with the strong winds, this results in a decent wind chill. After a good hour in the shallows, I notice a dark cloud approaching from the west and go ashore. Shortly afterwards it hails. At least I now understand that helmets are compulsory in Lo Stagnone.
At the nearby Donna Franca winery at the top of the hill, we treat ourselves to a delicious three-course meal and some excellent heavy Riserva. The sun sinks into the sea behind an infinity pool. On the last day, we unexpectedly find a huge luxury resort-like restaurant with space for 400 people, a bar and a pool in our poor western village. For the first two hours, we are the only guests among eight waiters. Then the local crowds trickle in and are soon dancing to a truly unique solo entertainer. Sicily is strange.
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.