Rügen has been my favourite German kitespot for 20 years. Reliable forecasts for easterly and westerly winds, plenty of space at all spots for every wind direction and no dangerously steep rock dams like on Fehmarn are reason enough, right? Oh yes, the largest standing area in Europe off Suhrendorf and plenty of flat water at practically every spot, as well as some wave spots in the east: time for the second kite report after ten trips.
The three of us set off from Regensburg early in the morning with a bus, trailer, seven boards and even more kites for the nine-hour journey to Rügen. The forecast has fluctuated quite a lot over the last few days, and the wind directions have also varied considerably. In the afternoon, we land at the Ummaii Surf Hostel in Suhrendorf, put up in one of the simple, affordable cabins with eight beds and immediately push the trailer to the dyke 200 metres away. (more…)
Fehmarn: take me home
The journey to the Baltic Sea takes a good nine hours and a lot of traffic jams through almost 40 degrees to Fehmarn. For many days, the wind oracles heralded the approaching end of the hottest June in living memory. Strong winds swept the heat away to the east for a whole week. There are more kites hanging in the sky over Fehmarn than baubles on a Christmas tree. The feeling is Christmas-like: very cold – but full of endorphins.
Rabbits hop fearlessly between the car and waving cornfields. Swallows give wind warnings by scratching their belly feathers on blades of grass. Shawn the sheep bleat as they graze on the dykes. The radio warns wind-prone vehicles not to cross exposed bridges. The trees are bending. We are clearly in the right place at the right time. (more…)
Mindoro, Bislig Beach
I was super sceptical before my last kitespot. You usually only find so many good reports on the web if someone pays a lot for promotion. But kitesuf-mindoro.com on Bislig Beach near Bulalacao really is an absolute kitesurfing paradise. I immediately decide to stay here for my last week.
The accommodation in five-metre-diameter safari tents or bungalows on the beach is a dream under palm trees rustling in the wind. The turquoise 300 metre wide bay at Bislig Beach points exactly towards Amihan and is just big enough for 20 kiters. As the small resort is already geared towards soft tourism and sustainability, as well as the involvement of the local Magayan tribe, it is still not crowded here. (more…)
Libagau & Nabagat
15 kiters travel from Camp Kitesurf Mindoro to the village by minivan and take a banka to the island of Libagau, an hour off Mindoro. The spray spills refreshingly over the deck from the crisp swell. In front of the island, we pull the banca on foot over some sea urchin nests through the shallows of today’s low tide towards the beach. Starfish RGB shine in the crystal-clear water.
The island of Libagau looks like the ultimate kitesurfing paradise: turquoise water, white beach, blue sky, green trees. The wind blows sideoff at a good 18 to 22 knots over the spot, which is not without danger. At low tide, the water in the choppy bay behind the sandbank in the south-west of the island is very shallow. There are some rocks and sea urchins. There are also a few sharp pieces of coral on the beach. (more…)
Pagudpud
The windiest spot in Asia is located in the very north-west of the Philippine main island of Luzon. Pagudpud is a completely different world again. In the 70s, the Markos regime sent many people here to Hawaii to obtain foreign currency. Today, they are a good deal richer than the rest of the Philippines. The houses are solidly built, some of them real castles, and many of them are fronted by really big cars.
I put up in a cheap homestay. Seas of green rice fields stretch from the village to the high mountains in the south. Saud Beach is pretty much the most idyllic tropical beach I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, Amihan is fully covered by the wind from the coastline. (more…)
PKA Kite Championship Lakawon
I had already put Lakawon on my list of spots at home. A rather luxurious resort occupies a small paradise island full of palm trees surrounded by turquoise shallow water. The banka takes me from Sicogon to Estancia, by minivan to Concepción and then two more large bankas two hours over to the next kiteboarding paradise five kilometres north of Negros.
The Philippine Kitesurfing Championships in Airstyle, Hangtime and Race will take place here over the next four days. More than 50 kiters from all over the world will be competing for the throne. The imported beer, which is actually banned, and several bottles of rum are professionally distributed to the rooms by tractor. Howard Hughes from the Philippines throws one funny round of “Who’s afraid of Duterte?” after another. (more…)
PKA @ Sicogon
A few weeks ago, the good people at Hangin Kite on Boracay suggested that I visit the Philippine Kitesurfing Championship on Sicogon. Thanks to a delay of just eight hours on the ferry from Cuyo back to Antique, the plan worked out. Together with a Spanish instructor and a competitor from Hamburg, I race two and a half hours from Iloilo to Estancia in the Speedvan.
The next afternoon, a banka full of competitors takes me three quarters of an hour over to Sicogon. The venue is the classy Huni Resort. The infinity pool flows directly into the endless white-blue horizon above the spot. Thanks to rooms beyond the €100 mark, we stay at the slightly cheaper Balay Kogon. The path there is currently still so narrow that only motorbikes can get you there over two kilometres. (more…)
Cuyohuuuuu!
Sometimes it seems as if the harder goals are to achieve, the more valuable they become. Cuyo fully belongs in this category. Located just 100 kilometres as the crow flies from my second kitespot Malalison in the Palawan Sea, the journey takes a good 27 hours. Banka to the mainland, trike, six hours by backfish bus without air conditioning through numerous landslides behind San Jose to Iloilo that have not yet been repaired by the last rainy season.
As nobody could reliably say when the ferry to Cuyo would leave, I arrive six hours early as a precaution. It departs almost on time and, thanks to enough paint on 40-year-old steel, arrives in Cuyo in one piece after 14 hours, even through three metres of swell. Compared to the 29 hours of seasickness caused by a storm from two Swedes for the trip from the other side, which actually took eight hours, my ship was the purest speedboat. (more…)
Malalison
After nine days, I’ve had enough of the overcrowded Chinese mall of Boracay. The magic of the Philippines lies elsewhere. It’s a two-hour bus journey south through the windswept green seas of rice paddies and crops drying by the roadside. In Culasi, I take a banka to the small fishing island of Malalison near the coast of Antique.
The satellite images promised waves in front of and shallow water behind a small sandbank directly in front of my Nipa hut on the beach. The receptionist at my accommodation Casa Preta provided me with good information over the days via Facebook. On arrival, he turned out to be the warm pole of the village community, which is apparently a legal requirement in the Philippines. (more…)
Re:racay or Borawhy?
Boracay is hardly recognisable since my last visit seven years ago. The only thing that remains is the density of the buildings and the crowds – although around 25% of all buildings have been declared illegal and demolished. Just three months after reopening, Boracay is still nowhere near its previous booking figures.
When Philippine President Duterte visited Boracay in 2018, he called the island a “cesspool”. He wasn’t far wrong. in 2012, we kitesurfed the Bulabog slalom between floating poo and condoms after every medium downpour. Large parts of the island smelled like dung heaps. With the six-month complete closure and general renovation, at least that is now a thing of the past. (more…)
Infinity Kite @ Beauduc
Winding side roads take you through the last foothills of the French Alps down into the Rhône Valley. This is the cradle of the Mistral, one of the most powerful wind systems in Europe. First the vineyards tremble. Castles, aqueducts and medieval villages pass by on rollercoasters. Then the poplars sway. The land becomes flatter and flatter. Mountains become hills.
From Arles onwards, the land flows into water for 50 kilometres like nowhere else in the world. The distances between the villages increase between the last rows of trees swaying in the strong wind. Yawning bulls and grazing grey horses on the last solid meadows before the sea. Then, very slowly, the water creeps inland through canals between rushes. (more…)
Swiss cheese @ Leucate
Two long journeys of up to eight hours take me via Barcelona to the small French backcountry village of Durban-Corbières near Leucate. A supermarket, a restaurant and a dilapidated castle in the middle of vineyards slow down my 7,000 kilometres comfortably. Everywhere, the winegrowers collect their harvest in Playmobil tractors.
The quirky innkeeper sorts cassettes under fig trees in front of his ancient stone house. Mambo from the 50s is playing inside. I am the only guest. A castle glows a lonely gold in the sunset while the moon rises behind the vineyards. (more…)
Tarifa
You would think that thanks to global warming under Trump’s butt – combined with more weather extremes – the wind should also increase globally. Maybe it will. But not where you would expect it. So far, I’ve travelled more than 5,000 km in Switzerland, France, northern Spain and Portugal with very little wind. I only had four kiteable days – and I’m only talking about one really good day.
Even at my very first kite spot, Lagos, where I rode a 2.20 m waveboard for the first time 19 years ago and managed a nice kilometre downwind thanks to a year of previous dry practice, there was absolutely no wind – so I went straight on to Mekkarifa. But even in Tarifa, with its 300 windy days a year, there were four days of calm at the beginning. (more…)
Muxia
The clouds hang low at the north-western end of Spain. Galicians in traditional costume play the bagpipes at the fourth village festival in four days. I eat mussels in the pleasantly cool rain. If it weren’t for the funny language here, which is exactly halfway between Spanish and Portuguese, this would be Scotland: old stone churches above the rocky coast and lots of greenery around the small fishing village of Muxia.
The end of the Way of St James, Santiago de Compostela, is just around the corner. I am the only kite pilgrim in my hostel. Everyone else is a hike pilgrim. With up to 800 kilometres in their legs, they still haven’t had enough in Santiago di Compostela – and are still doing a little 120-kilometre aftermath to the end of the world in Fisterra. (more…)
Kite War @ Guincho Beach!
After a few days with little wind on the entire Iberian Atlantic coast, my flat disc is delighted with the forecast on the thermally active beach of Guincho. Shortly before midday, the wind is still blowing 200 metres off the beach. Then it suddenly turns slightly to the west and picks up quickly. A light Swiss is torn across the beach on the 10. I set up the 9er Rally in a stubborn 24 knots.
At the leeward end of the beach, 200 metres away, seven-metre-high cliffs create strong windward eddies and nice breakers, according to the locals. The southerly current also pulls strongly in the water there. If you drift off, the only landing option is a 50 metre wide beach with plenty of rocks 200 metres further downwind. The locals advise swimming out there only with a retracted umbrella. (more…)
Kitesurf @ Ebro Reservoir
In Cantabria in northern Spain, the mountains rise directly out of the Atlantic Ocean to over 1,000 metres. On the nearby Picos de Europa, which are up to 2,400 metres high, there is still snow even in midsummer. The incredibly green land glows in the peculiar sunlight on the retina like Ahoy sherbet on the tongue. Endless blue skies and the sea add a pinch of Tiegerbalm under and over.
The Embalse de Ebro lies just 50 kilometres from the coast at an altitude of 800 metres in a completely different deserted land. The ancient houses are made of stone. There are pictures of two metres of snow on the only village street. Even now, at the height of summer, the thermometer is only a pleasant 17°C after 42°C in Bilbao – from below. (more…)
50 kn @ Cuesta Del Viento
Poetic places are hard to reach. It takes me 33 hours, four buses and a lovely motorised local to get to Cuesta Del Viento. I arrive at the wonderful hippie hostel Lamaral in the middle of nowhere. The centre is just before the Chilean border. Its name means “rise of the wind”. The strongest winds in Argentina blow here every day at 25 to 50 knots across the reservoir, which is only 20 years old.
The Jefe himself makes my bed in the simple accommodation. Afterwards, he hands me a beer. As soon as my Styrian room neighbour has emptied it, the whole colourful gang heads to the nearest restaurant for dinner. The party goes on for a long time. Stars are twinkling, wine is glowing, guitars are strumming and dowels are holding pictures of the wind on the walls. (more…)
Embalse Puclaro & Vicuña
The next destination is a good 1,400 kilometres and almost 24 hours by night bus south of the Atacama Desert. In cool La Serena on the Pacific, the fog hangs lower than under the Golden Gate in San Francisco. Behind it, the hot and dry Valle de Elqui rises to almost 4,800 metres to the Argentinian border. The two together create the rocket motor for Chile’s number one strong wind spot.
The Embalse Puclaro is a small reservoir in the vine-covered valley 50 kilometres behind La Serena. The wind is thermal and blows on a gigantic 300 afternoons a year with an average of 25 to 30 knots. Hidden Lines was a guest here. Vicuña is the last lively centre before the Argentinian border, 170 km away, and has a population of almost 2,500. (more…)
Paracas: Kiting with flamingos
Mad Max was definitely born a good 30 years ago on the Panamericana south of Lima. Four roofless walls in the middle of nowhere proudly proclaim the possibility of renting them as a restaurant. A few abandoned houses stand on the sand. High walls around them protect the nothingness from the nowhere. 20 ice cream stalls once offered “Helado Artesanal”. In between, rubbish heaps burn again and again.
A large display proclaims a golden future for your family in an urbanisation somewhere in the middle of nowhere. The building site was abandoned years ago. Sand dunes, dust, some petrochemicals, a steelworks, hundreds of lorries full of scrap metal and incredible poverty. This is the most desolate area I have ever travelled through. (more…)
Full Moon Party & Kitesurf @ Máncora
Out of the nine-hour night bus from Ecuador at six in the morning. By tuk-tuk to the last beach hostel. Sleep in, set up the board, pump up, out onto the water. 22 knots sideon on an endless sandy beach behind wild waves. A flock of pelicans passes by. His soloist fishes undisturbed next to my passing kiteboard in the Pacific.
The waves break narrow and close to the beach, no comparison to Santa Marianita with its endless smooth waves at pleasant intervals. The wind here is more powerful, and sideon jumps are more exciting over ten centimetres post-shorebreak anyway. Máncora should be higher up on the worldwide kitesurfing map – plenty of space and lots on offer. There have never been more than seven kiters on two kilometres of beach within a week. (more…)
The fighting dogs of Santa Marianita
The bus takes us on the first big step over ten hours and 3,000 metres in altitude down to the Pacific. The reclining seats and legroom are pure paradise. I work, blog and edit videos. The sun cream implodes and the Gopro no longer opens. In Santa Marianita, barking dogs chase my taxi to the small Punta La Barca hostel right on the hillside above Kite Beach.
Three of the neighbour’s fighting dogs attack me on my first walk. One of them bites my foot good and hard. Antibiotics iron out the subsequent infection. I’ve had four dogs in my life, I’ve made Nepalese temple dogs sing and hellhounds keep quiet. I’m good with dogs. There’s only one thing that helps with these fucking fighting dogs. (more…)
Kitesurfing Israel: Lake Galilee
According to the locals, Windy.com offers the best forecasts for the Sea of Galilee. They check whether the wind shifts to the west off Haifa at 11am. If this is the case, the thermal system (Mediterranean humid and cooler, Golan Heights / Syria dry and hot) will be in motion and you can expect good winds of 20 to 30 knots at the only legal kite beach on the Sea of Galilee.
At temperatures above 40 degrees, the thermal wind often dies of heat death. I’ve been in Tiberias for a good week now, directly on the other side of the kite spot. The temperatures were actually between 38 and 44°C every day this July. The locals are also complaining about a rather modest season so far in terms of wind. In my first week here, the wind was only at least 15 to 18 knots on 4 out of 8 days, unfortunately never stronger. (more…)
Marsa Alam
Marsa Alam welcomes us with the strongest three days of wind of all my 15 years in Egypt. From early morning to late afternoon, the wind blows at 18 to 32 knots over turquoise-blue water. I’m on the water longer in three days than I was in half a month in South Africa. We kite until the doctor comes. In Florian’s case, literally.
At low tide – which is quite independent of the moon phases here – there are just 200 by 400 metres of safe kiting between 50 metres of water only 10 cm deep on the beach and another 150 metres of sandbank in front of the fringing reef. With 20 riders, the spot is tight. At very low tide, Flo swerves too far out of the way of a beginner over the “sand” bank, which is covered in stones, and crashes. (more…)
Hermanus & Good Bye
Our last stop is Hermanus, an hour and a half east of Cape Town. Famous for whale-watching, Hermanus is bursting with good restaurants. We savour one last time the South African cuisine, which is limited for vegans but almost always excellent and varied. Our hostel, Hermanus Backpackers, is the purest luxury boutique hotel with a pool, garden, olive trees and a huge kitchen/lounge – at hostel prices.
On the second day in Hermanus, the wind is good for the last time. Unfortunately, the spot on the lagoon behind Grotto Beach, which is quite well frequented by sharks, only works when the wind is blowing from the east (bumpy, coming over land) or west to south-west (clean). If the main wind direction is southeast, nothing works. (more…)
Return to Witsand
On the way back to Cape Town, we make another stop in Witsand. The wind is offline for a day. A German band dressed as Bavarians plays swing hits from the last 100 years in the Breede River Lodge. It would be horrible at home, but here and with lots of locals who constantly want to buy us something else alcoholic to try, it’s more than fun.
On the second day there is another wonderfully constant wind of a good 20 knots over the freestyle spot in the estuary. My back is cooperating again. The hangtime is good and the panorama in front of the sand dunes is gigantic. With up to ten kiters, the spot is quite crowded, but everyone is considerate – and rides very well. What’s more, the number reduces your chances of winning the top prize at the Hairoulette. (more…)
The Author
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.