El Nido is a dream. Framed by high karst cliffs, it lies at the end of a bay in northern Palawan. There is nice accommodation and decent restaurants. Even if there’s only electricity from 18.00 to 24.00: Coron was much more filthy. We walk through the town and then four kilometres north to a secluded beach.
After that I’m pretty exhausted and lie down. I’m woken up by a gust of wind that sweeps into our little hut on the beach from the sea. Wind! At last! After 16 days of waiting, I’m finally in the right place at the right time. I run out onto the beach and set up immediately.
15 knots isn’t much, but it’s enough. The beach is only five metres wide, with trees, houses and barbed wire fences behind it. The wind is 70° onshore. There are easily 50 bangkas in the bay with massive tips for kite shredding. There is only 100 metres of open water on the right-hand side, slightly covered by a protruding hill. The spot is anything but perfect for kiting. But there are worse things.
Children come and inspect the kite. In a short time, a nice group gathers. There doesn’t seem to have been much kiting here yet. Uli puts the board together, no time to lose, out onto the water. In the windward jam of the dense beach development, the kite smears off. I pull it a few metres out to sea and do a Russian start.
There’s just enough wind to go upwind. I cross a few lanes in the open area, then I’m upwind of the anchored Bangkas. The sun sinks behind a mountain. The panorama is almost as awesome as when I was kitesurfing in Milford Sound. A surfer comes out too. We heat up a few lanes together. Then the wind dies down. It was only just under an hour. But after two weeks of waiting and towing the kite for nothing, it was a very good one.
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.