BARBADOS ALIVE! KITESURFING
by Brian Talma
It was radical kitesurfing energy when a group of watermen converged on Barbados recently for a week of fun, competition and some serious cross-over watersports action.
In January I hosted the annual Barbados Waterman Festival, a week-long event filled with watersports exhibitions, parties, friendly competitions and activities and a tri-watersports competition. Some specially invited friends from the professional windsurfing world joined me in this year's goal to gain international coverage of the event and show what the pros do in the off season with some cross-over water action.
Kitesurfing, one of the biggest cross-over sports for windsurfers,
certainly ruled this year's Waterman Festival. Two of the biggest names in
windsurfing, Hawaii's top ranked freestyle and wave sailor, Josh Stone, and
top German wave sailor, Robbie Seeger, breezed into Barbados for the festival.
The Festival is designed to combine different watersports so competitors can prove their competence in cross-over action and the tri-water competition merged windsurfing, surfing and boogie boarding and an expression session in kitesurfing, all into one event. The week-long festival was sponsored by Virgin Atlantic, Silver Rock Resort, the Barbados Tourism Authority and Ship Inn, and was held at Silver Rock beach, home of the Irie Man Action Shop, the festival's action hub. It was a week of partying, kitesurfing and informal competition while the Gillette Wide World of Sports crew filmed the action to present to an international television audience of some 200 million viewers.
This year we hunted Barbados' kitesurfing venues. Top seeds like Josh and Robbie joined the adventure, along with my brother Kevin and hot new-comer Andre Philips from Antigua, all for the fun of exploring new water action.
Kitesurfing was the biggest hit of the festival. It was good action, and the learning curve was amazing. Everyone truly enjoyed being out there. By Josh's third try, he was thrilled to be jibing. The more experienced Robbie Seeger was doing flips and pushing the limits in his normal powerful style. I pulled some really high inverted and twisted jumps and was 'feeling the feeling'. The best part was seeing everyone pushing their limits in their typical spirited competitive way.
My brother Kevin, an experienced waterman, was instantly pulling flips, wave riding and doing powerful moves. Andre, the adventurous 21-year-old from Antigua, was real energetic and enthusiastic as well.
Barbados proved an excellent kitesurfing destination. This is a sport that integrates surfing, windsurfing and wakeboarding into an exciting watersport all its own. Barbados is already a perfect destination for action watersports, with international class windsurfing and surfing already well-established, and now kitesurfing coming into its own here, too. Plus, the festive island atmosphere, the dynamic local scene and pulsating music, make Barbados one of the strongest beach cultures in the world.
The best kitesurfing places are along the south coast, particularly Long Beach and Casaurina because they are usually secluded and extremely long with very few obstructions. But for the more experienced kitesurfer there are many other beaches along the south coast.
Each sport requires different conditions and kitesurfing needs a long, unobstructed beach. I believe Long Beach will become the dominant kitesurfing spot in Barbados. Purportedly the longest beach on island, long Beach is deserted and unobstructed, with side on-shore wind with a shore break and another wave further out. It's good for beginners to experts, but occasionally the shore break is too big and the wind too on-shore so it becomes difficult for beginners.
Coming downwind is Silver Sands reef, which stretches two miles. Kayak point to Silver Rock is also really good, but in the December to March windsurfing season Silver Rock to Silver Sands beach is predominantly a windsurfing haven and when the winds are good it's very difficult to kitesurf and is not recommended at that time. The best time to kitesurf this area is when the winds are very light and the windsurfers are beached. Silver Rock is also a good launch point for kitesurfers.
Downwind a few miles is Casaurina beach. Although there are
many beaches on the south coast to launch and kitesurf, Casaurina is among
the best because of its length, and the wind tends to funnel down to Half
Moon. Also there is a small wave, which is perfect for jumping, and the wind
tends to be stronger here.
The best equipment for Barbados is 15, 11 and 9, and Irie Man Action Shop at Silver Rock Resort provides Naish equipment and lessons for beginners.
While kitesurfing ruled the water, the nightlife was just as explosive. First, we hit the big Friday night fish fry at Oistins, stopping off at the Fish Net, where the atmosphere is a nice blend of locals and visitors, a true laid back melting pot. We visited with our friend, Chef George, who grills the best fish around.
The sundown beach party at the Irie Man Action Shop was another exciting event with music and free rum punch flowing like water. Rum punch sneaks up on you, the flavour is so sweet yet the rum is strong, and lemme tell ya, even the tough ones like Josh and Robbie went down for the count that night. Us locals showed up the visitors, and remained standing.
Another night we hit The Gap, stopping off first at Café Sol for some first class Mexican fare, where margaritas and tequila hits are the house specialty. Intimate, yet festive, Café Sol is a great start-off for the night. We drifted to the neighboring McBride's Pub, then on to the Ship Inn for some live music. Then we moved out of the Gap to nearby Mojos, a casual local hang out. It's a nice mellow breather before hitting the hard late night spots like Harbour Lights where the action gets wild and blurry.
We also made stops at the Silver Sands Chicken Shop Rita, a truly local spot that's become world renowned. A simple rum shop with a genuine traditional feel of Barbados, the mood is relaxed, very local and Rita's chicken is the best in Barbados.
A lot of talk went down about cross-over sports and we agreed the true beauty of kitesurfing is how well it embraces all of our watersports. It's a great cross-over activity and nowadays water athletes have to be more complete by having strong capabilities in several areas. Many water athletes are crossing over to kitesurfing, and I found it complimented my other watersports well.
The cutting edge of sports now is in taking existing water sports to such extremes that you create a new sport altogether, like kitesurfing. And the sport that embraces all board sports and their individual sub-cultures is the Siemen's artificial wave tour, now into its third year. It brings all boarders into the same artificial wave medium, competing on equal turf.
After the Waterman Festival I was off to Australia where I joined top international boarders in the Siemen's Flowride event, finishing 7th in the first leg of this year's tour. Now I'm plunged again into the ultimate blend of extreme watersports and what I've learned is we must respect all sports and their cultures and have a more worldly perspective on action sports.
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