Laida - last 2010 session

Picture by QueteKite Team

Last sessions (66th for this season) last sunday in Laida (Mundaka). The wind lasted only half an hour, enough to get into the water with the Crossbow 13sqm. 2010 has come to an end... happy Christmas and happy New Year! See you in 2011 (God, I'm getting older...).

Necker Island

I bet everyone of us would like to be in Sir Richard Branson shoes. I personally like him because it does not seem to be the classical multibillionaire-24h working guy (and probably he his) who think only in his businesses. He also enjoy life and has a good sense of humor.
By the way, I take a look at the Necker Island web site and found out that actually you can pay for staying there... a one week room will cost you around 26K$ ONLY. What a crap!

December Kite sessions - 2010 wrap up

December has arrived, cold weather too. Beside of the freezing temperatures, during this month I already scored 4 new sessions:

• Ladia: Southern winds, 20kn, 10sqm kite
• Kanala: S, 30kn (with gusts at almost 35!) and the (overpowered) 10sqm kite - I was too crazy getting in... the chicken loop released and I found myself tangled with kite lines in the middle of the lagoon. I was trying to recover pulling the 5th line but it was nearly impossible because of the gusts pushing the kite far away from me. That was reeealy a bad situation.... never never again!
• Laredo: constant 22-26knots NE/E winds, some waves (1mt), too funny but guys... outside air temperature was only 7°C, which means that it was really chilly... to give you an example I can tell you that once outside the water I couldn't feel my foot :)

I still have one week left before Christmas time, let's see if I can get out one or two times more... ;)

By the way, the end of the year is getting closer now and it's time to make a quick wrap up of what 2010 has taken to my wind/kitesurfing session. To get to the point, up to the mid of December I scored a total of 64 sessions (35 kite, 29 windsurfing). This represents my personal best since 2006 (year in which I started to record my sailing sessions): 

Thanks to the kite I was able to stay into the water more and more times. Beside the fact this is the first year that I do kiteboarding, I already had more sessions than with the windsurfing. If you consider that I spent four weeks between Venezuela (El Yaque) and Brasil (Jeri) and I was out only with the windsurf board, you can imagine how hard is getting out in the water in the Basque Country. I'm start thinking I'll have to sell my windsurfing gear soon... my new NP Zone 4.7 has never touched the water... 

The windiest month has been August for obvious reasons (more time spent next to the sea, holiday season) followed by October (Jericoacoara) and April (Laredo thermal winds season): 

Of course, I will try to improve this during 2011 even if I have the feeling it won't be easy.  I also get the impression that kitesurfing is gaining shares... but that's a different story. :)
By the way I already start thinking in a couple of nice spot where I could spend one/two week holiday time  during the first half of 2011 (suggestions are always welcomed). Stay tuned for more info!

Andy Irons Memorial - 14.11.2010

Hasta luego, Andy.

New kites and Laida/Kanala sessions

Let's start from the good news: during the last week end  we had two beautiful sessions in Kanala / Laida. It has been better on saturday, in Kanala, where the wind was consistent and allowed us to use the small kites (thanks to my friend who lent me a Gin Zulu II, 9sqm). Good air/water temperature, wonderful sunny day, we stayed 4 hours in the water. Kanala is definitely a good spot, plenty of space for mounting/dismounting your kite, some grass and some sand for hassle-free packing. Water level allows beginner to sail safely... and no problem with offshore winds since there's a sand bar that allows you to recover easily in case of problems. The only drawback consist in the long path to reach the spot, or better said on the way back: there's steep set of stairs waiting for you and your -usually at the end-  heavy gear.
As I said, I tried my friend's new Gin "Zulu II" kite. I'm not really good in trimming the kite, and at the beginning I had the impression that even if the wind was quite strong, the kite was not pulling hard as expected.  Then we modified (thanks, Manu!) the bridle position and everything changed. Good jumps and quick turns, crashes of course, but I'm quite satisfied with the kite. I personally prefer my Rebel, but Gin kites seems to use strong material and a they have a good construction quality. Prices are of course lower than the usual well-known big brands.

On friday we arrived a little bit too late so our session lasted a couple of hours only. I got into the water with the Rebel 10sqm which was too small at the beginning. Unfortunately - and this is the bad news -  the pulley of the bar got broken (since the bar is a used one,  I already asked for a free replacement) so I stayed out of the water trying to recover the lines during more than 20mins... meanwhile my friend did me a favor and mounted my Cabrinha Crossbow 13sqm. The wind initially was flaw, but at the end of the day it started blowing stronger and stronger and I was a little bit overpowered... as usual, with the cabrinha bar so hard I had to use only one hand to depower the kite.... but it was still funny. The session ended just after the sunset in a gorgeous landscape; the silhouette of the barrows and the light reflected by the water... it was magical.  We had to pack our gear at the light of the lampposts, but it definitely worth seeing it.

In memory of Andy

Jeri, the video

Jericoacoara 2010 from Francesco Fucelli on Vimeo.

Rio de Janeiro & Jericoacoara

So... I'm finally back from Brazil, where I spent the past two weeks between Rio de Janeiro (this was a compromise for my wife) and Jericoacoara. A mid-season holiday with warm temperature and nice people.

First of all let me tell you something about Rio de Janeiro, the very well known Brasilian pearl. We stayed at Leblon (next to Ipanema) in a B&B, only 300mt far from the beach. Nothing I would really recommended to anyone, especially because 1) the place was very noisy (there was a crowded local restaurant with open-air table just under our windows) and 2) there was no air conditioning meaning we couldn't close the window at all - thus even more noise coming in. Beside of this, breakfast was reeealy good, people was nice, the place was next to the night life pubs and bars, easy reachable... We visit the city in three days, usual tourist tour (Ipanema, Pan de Azucar, Corcovado) plus an impacting visit to the Rocinha Favela, something I would recommend for your next visit. An unusual Rio view that will change your opinions about Favelas (if you ever played CoD Modern Warfare 2 you know what I mean...)

The flight from Rio to Fortaleza (3h, which for a Brasilian is like going from Barcelona to Bilbao) and the 4h transfer to Jericoacoara were disrupting. We arrived late at night (2am), tired, thirsty and hungry. The Ibiscus Pousada, where we spent our 10 days stay, was a total surprise. Managed by a nice Italian guy and a Brasilian woman,  it's a good and a better choice than other fancy and more expensive solutions. It is only 300mt far away from the beach, in a quite part of Jeri, so you can sleep well after you long wind/kitesurfing day without being disturbed by music and noisy people. The breakfast is astonishing and you will have problem eating all the fruit/bread/juices they will bring you. Too much food, indeed.

Ok, let's talk a little bit about the interesting stuff now ;). I sailed 7 out of 10 possible days. The reason is, 1) after you get out with a 4.5 and a 92lt board (which means, for me, >30kn), would you really care of a day with "only" 20 knots out there? 2) incredibly we had to face with 2 day of  NO WIND at all, really uncommon during this season of the year. Waves - which waves? Almost flat water conditions with some half meter waves in the no wind zone. Damn't!

Sailing conditions where almost ok, so I sailed with 4.5, 4.7, 5.4, 5.6 and even 6.4sqm sails. We rented the gear at the Club Ventos, which has mostly JP boards and some Starboard 2010 Kode/Flare. Be aware! Especially medium/big JP boards are very heavy (probably because they have been repaired many times, I don't discard they got some water inside too) so forget about early planning, especially when the wind is not blowing as strong as expected - better choice are Starboards, but they are limited in number - so be quick when the surf center opens and grab the right one!

Club Ventos is a good choice if your couple doesn't surf and wants to spend his/her holiday as a lizard taking a  huge sun-bath. Each day the club organize some event - live music, movie shows etc. - and the club offers you free sunbeds. Bartender will help with refreshments (not for free of course). Be aware, you are at the tropic, please remember you sunscreen creams!

Epic Session in Fiji

Cloudbreak September 2010 from Australia's Surfing Life on Vimeo.


...and I get impressed when there are 6ft waves in Sopelana...

More than one month

More than one month have passed since the last post. I got no excuse, you know how lazy I am. I've spent some days in Italy, just to meet my family and my old friends, and I also took the opportunity to do some kitesurfing - 4 session only - and some windsurfing at my italian home spot, Sabaudia and Carrubo - Baia Felix. To whom is interested, these are typical summer spots, with thermic wind blowing from the south (Sabaudia) and South West (Carrubo), always rotating throughout the day to westerly direction (the people from Rome call this wind as "Poneccio").

Anyway I was quite surprised that during August wind components came from the west, thanks to some perturbation somewhere in Europe and high pressure over Italy. This helped to lower temperatures and humidity and gave us some relief from the hot days we had at the end of July (couldn't even sleep because of the sultriness).

By the way I scored a total of 10 Wind/kitesurfing sessions. I had fun with my Cabrinha Crossbow, and I also tryed an RRD Placebo board, a shorter version (135cm long) than my Rival. The most fun came anyway from windsurfing: with a 145lt board I borrowed - almost stole - and my Point-7 AC-0 7.2, I was able to plane all the time. Not the best board for jumping too, but at least I know that for the next summer I have to buy a used 130lt board and get rid of my S-type.
We also had some sort of misadventure, we saw a young guy drowned in Sabaudia Beach, and this remind me to be respectful with the sea. He was 21 year old, he didn't know how to swim, probably he was too confident.RIP.
Be aware: tides in Sabaudia can be very strong (believe me, even if this is the Mediterranean sea, not the Pacific Ocean) and the seabed is very irregular: if you get there, especially when there are even small waves, watch out and never get out alone.

What's next, now that I'm back to Bilbao? I'm start thinking of the surf trip, which will be held on the next October... and the winner is....

Jericoacoara!

Yes my friend, I'm planning to get to Brazil as soon as possible. I also convinced my wife to join me (not a big deal anyway.. :) ). Stay tuned for dreams to come true!