Bulalacao Big Air

We wake up quite groggy. A bucket of water. Awake. We have grilled tuna with fried eggs for breakfast. The lovely Tucke takes good care of us – even though she’s well stricken herself. The wind hasn’t arrived yet. But the forecast on Windguru has almost always been right so far. For Bulalacao, it has been predicting choppy winds for today and the next few days for a week now.

I lose a game of chess against Max. A small rain shower passes through. Then the wind picks up. At Felipa Lodge II, you hardly feel a thing. I walk a little to the north. A deserted pier. The water in the two by four kilometre bay of Bulalacao is low – but crowned by white waves. The wind is now chopping at a brutal 10-30 knots.

We set up seven and nine square metre kites. Ten helping Filipinos are there immediately. Out we go. We heat up. The jumps are planned high, but when a gust catches you, they are simply gigantic. At one point, I’m sure I’ll be ten metres off the ground. I get a bit confused when counting the seconds of flight time. I rarely feel like I get high enough. My fetish. A few times today I have the feeling of “That’s enough…”. The impacts are limited, I stand up a lot today.

I cross to Bulalacao, about two kilometres to the north of the bay. The wind comes from the north-east over a hilly peninsula. The closer you get to it, the more stubborn the wind becomes. At the eastern end of the bay, there seems to be a considerable windward blockage and the wind drops significantly. At the western end, it stops so abruptly in the lee of the peninsula that my kite almost blows off. But there are still white waves in the centre.

I go out briefly at midday. The right pictures are still missing. Max takes care of that during the second session from two to four o’clock. Unfortunately, the wind is a bit weaker, so I only get pictures of five-metre jumps, the ten-metre hammers are just for my skull. More and more Filipinos arrive, with each jump they scream louder than a whole mountain of Isl. They bring us coconuts, give us a few cigarettes and make us feel like we’re in exactly the right place. In the late afternoon, Max grabs my nine and cruises around the bay until sunset. The Filipinos bid us farewell with the words “Thank you for kiting in Bulalacao.” A great day!