Kitesurfing Sri Lanka: Kalpitiya

The road from the airport leads 120 kilometres north to the Kalpitiya peninsula. The name is hard to remember, but it’s pure onomatopoeia. That’s exactly what you shout on the water, with a long “jaaa” at the end. The lagoon is about 400 metres by 2000 metres. The wind has been blowing non-stop at 25 knots for three days now.

After the Tamil Tigers gave up their civil war here in 2009, development began – very slowly. The houses of the Muslims living here are more than modest. There are just a few shelters. Even these are not ostentatious. In the evening, the village gathers around the fishermen on the beach. Ravens scream from the trees, followed by the muezzins in weird stereo from two minarets. Otherwise everything is quiet.

During the night, A-squirrels eat my soap. At breakfast, it probably already has a clean turd, while B-squirrel eats my pineapple. A tuk-tuk takes us 4 kilometres from Diyamba to the lagoon via small dirt tracks. After just 10 lanes, my quick release opens for no reason. The forgotten safety brings a boatman a nice daily income.

On the fourth day, the wind finally calms down a little, i.e. “only” 20 knots. But even before that, the 13-knot Maori was blowing a few times at 25 knots. Borderline. On the fifth day, the Core Riot XR 13.5 finally got going for the first time. Great pull, turns quickly and very directly, but unfortunately hardly any depower and an extremely small wind range around a sweet spot of perhaps plus minus 4 knots. Not a gust iron, and therefore unfortunately not my kite.

Kiting is a religion. Max defines the mantra: “Eat. Kite. Sleep.”. That’s all there is here, and that’s all there is to it. The disciples of the only two larger kite camps in Kalpitiya even have their own religious costume: blue lycra with “Kiting in Paradise” printed on it. They almost look like Buddhist mendicant monks backwards when they shout loudly for weed to annoying music at their bar in the evening.