The last 30 kilometres to Galinhos lead through endless wind farm forests over brilliant white sand dunes. Galinhos lies at the end of a long peninsula. The sandbank offers a unique variety of conditions for kitesurfing: on the land side is a large estuary, the perfect flat water spot. On the seaward side, the waves break evenly on the gently sloping beach.
The very first jump in the flat water after the waves inland knocks me out a good five metres. Landing in the waves, turn and out again. The waves are not big, but quite steep for a long time. Perfect ramps for endless gliding downwind. In 15 years of kitesurfing, I’ve never had a wave spot that offered such good conditions in both directions.
When I go out, the spot gets a bit crowded. Full, which in Galinhos means four kiters per two kilometres. I now realise the reason for the good lift: the other kiters are riding 5 and 7m². I was out with 13, the laminar wind was certainly enough for that. I enthusiastically return to my nearby pousada and extend my stay by a week. Then the horror for web designers begins.
I wander through the village. There’s a bakery, four corner shops, a pizzeria, five pousadas and two pubs. That’s it. What I don’t find out the next day is that there is at least one person who speaks one of my languages. A way to log on to public Wi-Fi without a Brazilian email address and national insurance number. The possibility of topping up a prepaid card from Recife in this country too. Teaching the pousada PC reverse tethering.
More people know me here now than Google. I feel like I’m in a hellishly difficult 8-bit text-only adventure game from the 1980s – illiterate. The pizza chef organises the Wi-Fi key for me at a nearby pousada. Their Wi-Fi reaches exactly 5.5 metres to the sunny street in front of it, which is whipped by shifting sand. Great for kiting, rubbish for a laptop. With the new SIM card I get 2kB/s – once per minute.
Maybe I should just go kitesurfing for a week. Just kitesurfing. I pack my things and pass the donkey carts in the village. The sand is hot and the walls are unplastered. The mums chat kitesurfing in the shade of the few trees. The wind on the beach is kicking up to 25 knots. Massive waves, big airs and heavy crashes. The sun sets behind the wind turbines and I go out again with my words. Take a look at the aerial photo on Kiteclub Brasil!
In the evening, I finally find people who speak my language. The Brazilian barkeeper at the Wunderbar on Sylt is having wild thoughts after a rough sundowner session in the strong winds. They range from mass murderers in America to the loyalty of high-society tourists. His perfect counterpart is the Bavarian kite instructor. I sit between them like the two old farts from the Muppet Show, united in one person, and follow the action from set to set as a spectator of a high-calibre tennis match. The wind turbines on the other side of the estuary twinkle like Christmas trees, and the orange lights of the oil platforms in the distant sea flicker softly. Nothing is unimportant. Everything is fine.
Video Kitesurfing Galinhos, below without sound. Better: with sound via Videodoubler.
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.