I'm a Canadian Guy who started this windsurfing blog during our sabbatical year in France. I have since added decade of fun windsurfing posts from our other adventures including freestyle, wavesailing, the International Windsurfing Tour and now wind foiling.
A work conference in Mexico turned into a wonderful kiting adventure when I got to the hotel and spied Naish kitesurfing banners blowing in the wind.
Just a few hundred steps upwind of the resort was a great kite school with friendly instructors.
I quickly arranged a supervised kite rental for 4pm - I prefer late in the day so I'm not staring into a blazing sun! After getting the 14m kite set up we headed upwind to launch away from the crowd.
Post kite session smile photo! (Next time I'll ask for a photo with my eyes open.)
It has been a year and a half since I kited last so some tips on staying upwind were welcomed. My transitions needed work too. So the supervised rental quickly transformed to a lesson with nice KiteMex instructor Alex.
I did OK and Alex did one nice upwind run with the kite and board for me to start again back upwind and have a second part to my session away from the crowd at the kiteschool beach. I then went for and hour and a half in total eventually being able to keep myself (mostly) upwind.
First session - S/E wind nicely side / onshore but a struggle to stay upwind
The next day it was super windy. I used my trainer kite to give work colleague Andrew a beginner on-land training session. That was fun but we were both a bit freaked out by a novice kiter getting pulled up into a palm tree when he got dragged over the beach and landed his kite in the trees. He was ok but still - kitemares!
I rebuilt my nerve and my 4pm lesson was on a brand new 12m Naish kite. I had an even easier time staying upwind but was fully tired out after an hour and 15 minutes. By the time I got off the water I could barely walk my thighs were so sore. I covered almost 13 km with a max speed of 30 km/h.
Second session - 12m kite more wind and staying upwind better.
On the last day the wind was dropping so I had my lesson at 11am. I could get going on the 16m kite but as the wind started dying eventually I couldn't quite relaunch it. The other Alex came out on a SUP and sailed the kite and board back while I had a fun SUP session. There is a soft wave that breaks on the sandy bottom so I had a few SUP surf wave runs.
Last session, some ok runs but then the struggle to relaunch and lost ground downwind.
Fun SUPing close to shore. Nice waves out beyond the reef. Next time!
All in all what a great surprise to find an awesome kite school with great Naish gear. And how nice to have a bit more time to work on my kiteboarding skills.
Here is a quick summary of our 2019 Bonaire windsurfing trip. So many highlights:
All smiles in the warm, clear waist deep water!
My 8th ABK windsurfing camp where I did my 1st planing duck tack. 3 more then next day and several more the next week. See the duck tack blog post.
I mostly completed and sailed away from my fifth Vulcan on March 29th. (Tips: remember to twist hips to the front, sail leaned back, hop out of the pool with shoulders pushing down on boom.) That means I’ve done vulcans in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016 and now sort of one in 2019!
Each night we did video analysis. This was some nice video of a downwind 360.
I really enjoyed sailing my own gear every day. It was well worth the $100 Sunwing baggage charge which I only had to pay one way!
Arrived and it is windy!
And it wasn’t too much hassle going through the airport. Jen even enjoyed sailing on my gear - the 10 year old Skate 108 and the super light 1 year old Idol 5.6. I used that sail 13 days straight. Jibe City hooked Jen up with nice gear each day and rented me a great spot to store my board and sail.
All our gear arrived!
The ABK Foil lecture was fun. I look forward to using some of those tips this summer.
ABK foil lecture
ABK Jibe BBQ night
I was glad to have brought a weed fin, but didn't really need it most days. The sargassum sea grass was much less than last year.
Another highlight was meeting another of Len’s grateful students.
One of Len's nice students
We enjoyed watching the King of Bonaire contest.
King of Bonaire contest - warm up for the PWA
And it was cool to be in the same place where Balz Muller was showing off his insane foil skills.
The Sunday photo shoot went well. A different shot of the one run that we managed to get on the way into lunch together was selected for the Jibe City ‘Couple of the week’. Thanks to Marc Van Swoll - MVS Photography.
Selected as couple of the week - Thanks Marc
One handed carve 360
Blasting
Couple photo enjoying the waist deep water
We were excited to find that the Bonaire Landsailing Blokarts were open for business again. 30 minutes is the perfect amount of time to enjoy the view of the ocean and also see just how fast you can get going. (38 km/h) What a blast.
Blokarting was fun!
I re-enacted my daughter's joy from a decade ago!
Katie at age 7 enjoying the Blokarts on Bonaire
Too bad we couldn’t stay for the PWA championship.
The PWA is coming to town
I wound up getting planing 14/14 days. Some days I windsurfed over 40 km between morning and afternoon sessions.
Typical session in the waist deep water (map looking east)
Session with some longer runs out to the deeper water
I only topped 40 km/h on the last day, hitting 44 km/h using the rental gear for my last hour of sailing. My new GPS watch shows my heart rate hitting 159 which is much higher than I expected!
Pretty high max heart rate while windsurfing!
Food and overall hospitality on the island was wonderful. Here are a few shots.
Canadian content - Oma's plate!
Fancy dinner
Ceviche
Fun with the KLM crew waiting for the plane from Amsterdam
Cruise ship in town
Dinner on our last night
Looking forward to future visits to Bonaire.
(For my own reference in the future, here is my Bonaire List: Own board, Weed fins, Ankle wrap, Harness, Gloves, Gopro, GPS)
