If you closely adhere to these steps, kiting sans beach becomes a safe, easy and fun alternative, and opens the world of offshore wind kiting which is often the best. We’ve never had a single incident (well, one slightly torn kite, but that doesn’t count!).
In this 3rd part series I want to cover how you go about getting the two most likely things you’re after- GEAR and/or MONEY. I’m going to admit something right off the bat here so you don’t waste any time. To be honest, I’m not at all sure what the best way is to get money. We’ve been incredibly successful at getting gear- from watches, to clothing, kites, surfboards, paragliders and a lot more- some of it worth thousands and thousands of dollars.
For once it wasn’t me who almost died. But I’m already getting ahead of myself.
We had a week in Bazaruto without guests to play on the dunes before heading back across the Mozambique channel to Madagascar. In this time we flew as much as possible; spent way too much time in Vilanculos trying to repair one of our refrigerators (unsuccessfully); and got about $12,000 dollars worth of camera and paragliding equipment stolen from right under our noses on the beach. In less than 12 hours we had it all back in perfect nick after spreading the word that we’d pay a handsome reward no questions asked for the return of the items. We also had our secondary anchor stolen by some fishermen from right off the bottom one night, but this seemed a small price to pay for all that Bazaruto had provided.
In the Honeymoon destination of the Maldives you find many wonders, but get off the tourist route a bit and you find pure paradise. Join us as we are the first ever to paraglide over these magical waters.
I try not to get too excited about any of the locations on our itinerary. Most of them are places I haven’t been to in the past, just like our guests. But I’ve found if you allow yourself to romanticize and dream too much, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. Readers might recall this was the case with Myanmar, where the guidebooks and the crazy costs to get there conspired into hype which got the better of me (see “Long Days in a Strange Land“). So as we sailed, well motored west from Myanmar across the Bay of Bengal to the Andaman Islands I left the guidebooks on their shelves, and kept my mind buried in the engine rooms, which needed attention, rather than the horizon.
Burma, or Myanmar is very, very difficult to sail due to the time consuming and exhorbitant expense of obtaining permits. Our hope was that this meant we’d be sailing an area that was pristine and wild. We find it anything but.
Come aboard the Best Odyssey with superstar Ben Wilson for the swell of the decade in Sumbawa.
Scoring wind and waves in the heart of the Indonesian archipelago…
Finding unsurfed and unkited waves takes a lot of homework and plenty of planning, but we’ve gotten pretty good at it over the years and on this trip it pays off in the heart of Indonesia in spades. Join the Best Odyssey with John Amundson on board as we hit a mother of a good swell.
Visit the wonders of the rock island by helicopter and the amazing pelagics of the deep in the wonderland that is palau.