Tuesday, February 06, 2007

kitesurfing


well if i am to be true to this part of my blog's description: "This is a blog set up by Eli Fuller (me) to help the company keep up with the times and to promote our little country to prospective guests.", then i must write about things that have nothing to do with Adventure Antigua as well.
Kitesurfing or kiteboarding is an interesting "extreme" sport that kinda is a fusion between traction-kite flying, windsurfing, surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding, wakeboarding and any other sport that you ride a board. It really is kinda unique though, and has been getting quite popular over the past 10 years or so.
Steve Gray, who worked at Caribbean Helicopters as a pilot was the first person kitesurfing here using one of the early designs. It was pretty difficult to use but he managed to make it look cool. I was coming to the end of my professional windsurfing career and after my last big race, actually traded three of my sails for 2 big kites and a board. I kinda taught myself and in no time, i was teaching others this cool new sport. A few years later i taught Andre Phillip, who was one of the younger pro windsurfers from Antigua. He had been doing windsurfing competitions in the Caribbean and i knew he would pick up kitesurfing very quickly. Anyway, sure enough within two years he was ranked in the top 5 on the Professional Kitesurfing World Tour doing well in competitions all over the world. Andre, has been featured in dozens and dozens of magazines, internet articles and even sport TV shows. He is still one of the main figureheads in the sport of kitesurfing. Most Antiguans don't know about his fame out of Antigua, but he has given Antigua incredible recognition in areas where it would have been missed before. He spends about 1/3 of the year here in Antigua and the rest of the time traveling all over the world's best destinations for kitesurfing. What a lucky guy huh? Anyway, these photos i took on Saturday and today at Jabbawock which is on Antigua's North shore just below the islands of the North Sound which is where we do the Eco Tour. I hope you enjoy the pics, and pass by if you have a car for the day. there is usually good kitesurfing action at that beach. The first shot above is of Stevie, who also grew up with us windsurfing and fishing and now kitesurfing. He's a chef. The ones below are of Andre a.k.a. DRE. and the very last is of an old fart called Eli way back in the old days
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