How kitesurfing dreams come true. PART 2: The dummy crash test...

by Emilie Marx
(Part 1/4)

I last left you panting over the outcome of the mix of my new filming whim and the discovery there were baby sharks in the kitesurfing lagoon…

I’m a shark freak, big time. I love them. I’m fascinated by this dinosaur that defies the most perfectionist of designer’s lines…
I am not keen on having encounters with them generally speaking – I do have fear and respect- but at the same time, I have an irresistible attraction towards them.

The lagoon I’m talking about is a tricky place; it is pure delight at high tide because it can’t get any glassier than this. On the other hand, low tide can turn it into the worst land mine place, in the sense that some areas can have as little as a couple of centimetres of water above the bottom (we’ve all already had nice flying experiences when getting a fin stuck there…)

Upwind from the lagoon is a spot locals call “Paranoia”. Paranoia is my favourite place of all to wave ride: when it gets big, this becomes an unreal playground.

Colours are unbelievable, you can see the fish beneath you between the sets, it’s breathtaking. Plus, it’s never packed (you will soon understand why) and I’ve already kitesurfed with dolphins there, which immediately turned the place into my preferred spot.
The only downside is that Paranoia didn’t get its nickname for no reason; the waves there break because of fence of fire coral that surrounds all of the lagoon - and that happens to come up to the surface at low tide… Paranoia can really hurt.

You can’t lose your board there. You can’t crash your kite there. You can’t stuff up, period. This is solely an advanced wave rider spot.

For long time I never went there, put off by the danger I considered unnecessary.
With time, I learnt to have my marks and now I know what’s do-able, and when.
- I mean, supposedly! - But I did scare the hell out of myself many times before getting it right (going down a wave to suddenly see a huge piece of coral right in my way…)
So many times I felt my heart jumping out of my chest while imagining the next following seconds, to miraculously make it after having squeezed my buttocks like never before!

I’ve somewhat always known that I’d hit the reef; eventually…
Not that I wanted to, it’s just that those were the odds: one can’t be lucky all the time and I had been lucky on a bunch of occasions already…
(This comment perfectly illustrates what I said in my initial Interview: when I get hurt, I usually know why….)

To read the second part of "how kitesurfing dreams come true: the dummy crash test"