Riders: Al Bentley, Nick Bentley, Mark Smith, Nick Bennett, and most importantly Maeli Cherel.

I’ve just come back from two of the windiest weeks of my life in Sotavento, Fuerteventura. It pretty much blew everyday all day for 14 days and by the 2^nd day we all decided that our 5.0m sails would stay in the apartment. For my part I was wondering why I’d even bothered to bring my 4.2m. 

Fuerteventura. 

Fuerteventura is the longest island in the Canaries. Being made up of mostly extinct volcanoes it is very arid, with little vegetation and practically no naturally growing trees. There are a range of different beaches- some really rocky ones and other long stretches of white sanded beaches. 

I’ve been to Fuerte a lot, having a sister who now owns a surf school (Liquid Surf School) up North where she has lived for the past 4 years. But it was the first time I’d spent so long down south and was surprised at the difference in conditions.

MaeliThe North boasts a range of reefs with perfect waves but the wind is not that reliable. Sotovento, on the other hand, is flat (ish) and mega windy- or at least it was when we were there.  There are two Rene Egli centres down there about 1km from each other. In normal conditions Centre 1 is windier but also choppier on the outside. At Centre 2, some nice ramps form and you can even do a bit of cheeky wave riding. At high tide, the lagoon between both centres fills up, and in theory yields mirror flat water. 

As the name suggests, the night life in Costa Calma (the town next to Sotovento) isn’t at all as hardcore as the wind although the Boardriders bar is a perfect place to chill in the evening. The owner is really nice and even let us organise a barbecue free of charge and with discounted beer for Al’s birthday.  

Windsurfing

The good thing about the wind blowing all the time is that you don’t have to worry about getting to the beach early. You can still rock up at 4 in the afternoon and get a solid 4 hours on the water! Nick BentleyThe wind doesn’t drop and technically you could windsurf from sunrise to sunset- if you can handle it that is. Since none of us- even the boys- are that hardcore, we never bothered getting to the beach before 12:30 except on our last day where we managed to rock up as early as 11:00! We still managed to average 4hours on the water everyday only coming in because we were too hungry/too knackered /too destroyed to continue. Or because some bit of kit had broken. The conditions when we were there made it pretty intense to learn freestyle in.  Apparently it’s not always like that and we got a bit of a strange wind direction. The offshore wind made it gusty and at certain tides it would get uber choppy so we all got stoked when we learnt that the lagoon would be filling up and had some great sessions in there. It wasn’t that flat except when it would get dangerously shallow- I guess that’s what freestyle fins are for, plus watching people crash at mach10 and getting up in ankle deep water can be very entertaining! My favourite sessions, however, were the evening ones right off the beach when the wind would drop by a couple of knots, the gusts would die down, and it became a bit easier to go for stuff. The whole place becomes beautiful at sunset, when the centres shut and there are less people on the water. We also, in the last few days, found a not so secret spot  a couple of km up north that was less gusty and much flatter- I just wish we’d found it before!

The Trip

We usually do windsurfing trips on a massive budget, so there’s been a lot of camping, dodgy cars or cramped pads. This time we chose to knock the standards up a notch and rented a pimp pickup truck and a nice apartment with a pool and stunning views on Centre 1, Costa Calma and the desert dunes. It was amazing to have that panoramic view over breakfast and would have been even better if the breakfast didn’t consist of cardboard tasting cereal! 

The Gang and The Pick Up

As for the pickup, well I’d say driving around in it, having lunch on it and generally owning it for two weeks was probably the highlight of the trip. As usual with rental cars you have to be careful not to show the kit to the rental company. So we split our group up- Nick and Mark waited with the kit inside the terminal whilst Al and I went out to greet our rental company. In our case the rental company was a short Spanish lady who took one look at us and declared we were too young. Al’s 25 but still she said the problem was that he looked too young. Luckily I speak Spanish and so managed to convince her that we were definitely not going to race her most prized Toyota Hilux, or drive it off road- especially not after a few pints in the dark! What she didn’t know was that our apartment was along a dirt track and was a long walk from the bars... Whatever, once we’d given her the wad of cash she was happy enough so after being 100% sure she’d left the premises we loaded up the over 7 year old, pretty beaten up truck. It was old but it was a machine. The last thing you want to do after a long day on the water is load up your kit on the roof of a shitty car in force 7 with sand hitting you in the face. So although kit still needed strapping up- it only needed one strap and could be slid onto the back quite easily. Apparently, though, it’s illegal to have stuff sticking out so I don’t recommend it because we did in the end get fined 40euros, just as we were leaving the island!

Maeli The gang

There ended up being quite a few of us out there, with 5 of us in our pad and a few others close by. But as usual I was the only girl except for the last few days when Katie came out. By now I’m used to being in the minority and the only times I find myself with a majority of girls is on family holidays! Holidays with boys just involves high levels of snacking, windsurf chat, quite a bit of beer, and some male banter. And in this case pick-up praising. I’d say it’s definitely hard to keep up with the windsurfing level especially when you find yourself on the same size sail as most of them. Men are stronger and have...well...balls. So for them going for Ponches, Toads or Burners isn’t really a problem. Thats probably why they all came back injured and why we had to initially do daily trips to the windsurfing shop for replacement sails, masts, booms, epoxy and super glue. My kit, and body, stayed in one piece the whole time and apart from a large number of cuts, holes in my feet, and bruises I was alright. 

Sailing with boys, and seeing them improve and go for moves they probably aren’t ready for but still almost land, forces me to come out of my comfort zone. So with the conditions making it hard for spinny moves on the water, and realising that I was never not going to be stacked, I grew some guts and decided it was time to loop. I’d had a really good session and so thought screw it- now or never. I slapped my back on the first go and almost got round on my second. It’s port tack over there- which is my good side but still I was surprised at how easy it was. So much easier than freestyle moves and I don’t know why I never tried them before because it’s just close your eyes, throw the sail forward and wait. It took me two days to land one- which when I compare it to how long I took to Spock, is ridiculous!

The girls

Although the PWA women’s freestyle had been cancelled, there were still a few pro girls out there as well as a number of others trying vulcans. It is definitely inspiring to watch them train and be so keen. Most of the time they were on the water longer than others and seeing them land moves so smoothly shows me that it’s not impossible. Since there’s not many of us it didn’t take long to recognise who was on the water and on what sail they were. Girl’s who hardly knew each other were cheering each other on when a new move was landed. They’re all friendly and easy to talk to so getting advice isn’t hard. 

And Out. 

The standard when we went was pretty nuts, with Kiri and Taty doing some of the highest shakas I’ve ever seen and busting out some ridiculously hard combo moves. It was great to watch and sail with so many good windsurfers and it shows you that even though the conditions are hard, it’s still possible. It’s hard to learn but if you want guaranteed wind in the summer- Sotavento is the place to go. I windsurfed 13 days out of 14 and that was only because I needed one day for my body to recover.   Unless you’re in bad need of exfoliation and are into getting sand-blasted continuously, I wouldn’t recommend it as a non- windsurfing destination except if you don’t mind going up North and getting your surf on. 

All in all it was an amazing two weeks . Next stop-Jeri. Can’t wait. 

Written by: Maeil Cherel- Four Boards, Fanatic, Vandal Sails, Spartan, SWA.

Thanks a lot Maeli, can't wait to hear all about Jeri!

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