Small island.
When I landed in beginning of July I just thought to myself “wtf I’m doing at that desert?”. Right after Turkey, I re-packed my suitcase and flew here to work as an kite instructor at Rene-Egli at Fuerteventura. You won’t like it, won’t handle it, too hard conditions – I heard. Nevertheless, knowing some poeople are really happy with Fuerte and even fall in love with this island, I decided to come and check it out. If it’s so hard I will have at least that experience of working at the possibly biggest kite school and another spot checked out.
Life.
First few days I spent waiting for my n.i.e. number, that you have to get, if you work legally here. That time I was living at a crappy staff room in Melia Gorriones and beside kiting the rest was completely crap. Things started to fall in place when I started working and moved to Costa Calma. Canary Islands are a nice place to live. Cost of living is not high, at Fuerte the cheapest things are cigarettes and alcohol. Car is not a must have but more of a should have here. Costa Calma is really small, hotels and few neighborhoods, where locals live, some bars and Fuerte Action shops at every corner.
You can walk through it every direction you wish in 15 minutes. A lot of places (big supermarket, beautiful surf spot, zoo) are near by, like few kilometers and a car would make it a bit less claustrophobic for me. Having good friends was a lifesaver. I had the luck to check out how it looks here during PKRA and Windsurf World Cup. I got the impression that beside the competitions or even more than it, the Carpa, a white big tent with everyday parties, was the biggest attraction.
I saw few slalom races and then, as expected, the freestyle kite girls finale on a computer, about 500m from the actual place it was happening. Lazy me.
“Fuerte Bla Bla” – here everything is fuerte-something and connected to Rene-Egli. Good job actually, I got a feeling that someone just invented a “beach corporation”.
Spot.
It’s 4-5km from Costa Calma. Rene-Egli offers a wide range of shuttle services. For those who wish to be more independent, again the car subject. Of course you can take a walk at the ocean shore, takes at least 30 minutes. I never tried. The kite center is situated at the spot.
When there is no lagoon (that we all love so much) the ocean in front of it it the only secure place to ride, especially with most wind directions being offshore. In the “lagoon mode on” you can choose to stay at the ocean or go a bit further south to the “proper lagoon”. When you’re not a student at the kite center, you can tag along with shuttle lagoon service, do a downwind to the lagoon or drive there by car. Your choice.
During my stay the wind was 100% offshore, from exactly 21 days in so called high season maybe 2 I would say were with really shit wind. It picks up at around 10.30-11 and is stabilising itself around 15 to stay 25-30knots level to late evening. Usually. Forecast is something you could take under consideration but be sure it’s not gonna be an exact match. This place is really about tides, that affect the wind strength also. At the spot in front of the kite center you have a great rescue team available, as long as you have storage here.
Everything about it is explained nicely in all leaflets of Rene Egli, how it’s divided to areas, courses, rescue and more. Rescue team has people at the tower (on the left) and few jet-skis for use. Offshore and waves can make it hard for anybody.
I had to take one day to get used to the conditions but after all it’s something you just don’t notice at all. The strangest is when you basically never know if there will be a gust or a drop in the wind, so progress in my opinion is slower than with other steady wind locations. Gusty offshore is the price you pay for every day wind.
Work.
I enjoy teaching. I liked it. Kite center itself is situated in a little, of course human planted and designed, palm tree place. Well organized, good equipped, nice surrounded.
Not an easy spot. No easy conditions. More trouble I had getting used to “no green” desert view nor to teaching there. Once again – I liked it. Hope to be back some day, maybe sooner than anybody thinks. I will not get in to all information concerning work flow and details of kite-center life, check it out yourself. I was the only girl working there that time, all the guys were really cool. I kinda got an impression, that as soon as they got to know that I am not going to cause extra work for them, our relations got even better. Big hugs for you all! Ha! That one is called “staffie”.
You can get used to drinking a morning coffee with that view.
One more thing, as an instructor you are using the jet-ski a lot, to teach, to help, to get your students from the “dark blue” or almost from “mistral”. Very fun but also tiering and demanding. If only there was no need to push it 10m into the water after high tide when the water goes away. So remember “instructores, instructores a jet-ski, help push, ayuda empuje!” and then you push!
Snap back to reality.
Nevertheless I had to fly back after just 3 weeks. The plan was to stay there to mid September but I got my left knee injured and decided to get it fixed as soon as possible. First time I heard “you have to fix it” was at least 6 years ago, I knew it will backfire and it did.
Big big thanks to Beata, Kasia, Kasjan, Kuba, Lea and Mike (alphabetically), without you guys it wouldn’t be the same.
So from now on, there is a new phrase. Remember all you out there,
“idziemy kajtowac!”
[thnx to Lea]