A Week Of Lull

Nothing is worse for kiters than a lull. Everyone gets grumpy, some get scabies. A pitiable radical splinter group smashes the skulls of surfers. I make plans to go to the Sahara. 750km oneway, cars are only available from local hire companies and expensive. However, after a broken boot lid on my last trip 15 years ago, my confidence is a little shaken.

I feel like I’m in a book by Garcia Marquez. I’ve forgotten which one exactly. It’s hot and humid. My glasses fog up during the nightly revelry in the pirate’s den when it rains outside. My six-hamster cage has been converted into a cage and I’m now alone in it. I’m working and waiting for the wind from hell, which will hopefully arrive in six days’ time.

The travellers are colourful and fast. Hardly anyone stays in this place for more than two days. And those who do survive a week only do so because or despite excessive alcohol consumption. Forgivable from about the 253rd repetition of a bad Bob Marley song a day. The only really crass traveller was a supposedly gay musician from California – with his blue glasses, he is proven to be the first musician since 235 AD to have written music here sober.

The carvers carve in the Schnitzergasse. Cord twisters twist cords in Kordeldrehergasse. Bakers bake, tailors tailor, shoemakers hammer. The spices smell and the cesspit stinks. I measure 5.5 knots on the beach. I didn’t even realise that my anemometer could measure to the nearest decimal place.