Friday 30 December 2011

First time down-the-line...

Got my little mate Hobbsy here for the festive season and we scored a great little sail at El Martillo yesterday. He wants to learn forwards and also get some decent frontside waveriding in as he doesn´t get the conditions much at home. Well, the conditions were ideal for his first attempt- head high in the sets and straight sideshore! He sailed excellent, nice style and will improve as the week progresses looking at the forecast- well done! Today looks like Punta for forwards, then Jim and the posse from Pura Vida get here and the forecast is amazing so fingers crossed for an unforgettable new year windsurf bonanza!!!!!!!!
Check out Hobbsy´s first waveriding experience here....

Wednesday 28 December 2011

Merry Christmas...





Christmas has been and gone- absolutely knackered now having been working in Rock Island Bar every night while the owners are away and SUPing every day. The swell has been small but good fun at El Martillo. Loving my new 8´10 Fanatic Allwave, starting to get the hang of turning it a bit more now, it´s so manoueverable compared to the 10ft board I had previously. Got some decent pics from yesterday and a bit of Gopro footage from Boxing Day (I´ll be making a video eventually with all the footage I get over the next couple of weeks). Check it out below. The wind is coming back big-time in the next couple of days and I´ve got a good friend over with all his "digital media devices" so we should have loads of action to post up very soon.... watch this space. Til then, Merry Christmas!!!!













Thursday 22 December 2011

Majanicho...



At last some wind at Majanicho! Despite being a "legendary" spot, Majanicho is predominantly a lightwind "float n ride" type of place (better on the SUP normally!) and the last couple of years have been incredibly un-epic there due to super-light winds so I have been searching out alternative, windier places to sail in east/southeast winds. This week, however, we had a real cool session there with pretty strong wind for a change and nice clean, fun-sized waves. Not too busy either, which is quite unusual. I sailed for a good two hours straight and left the water knackered but happy to at last have scored a good blast at what can be one of Fuerte´s best waveriding spots when the wind decides to play ball. Thanks to the injured Victor for these photos...















Thursday 8 December 2011

Still windy....


And it just keeps coming! The eastwind is still here for another couple of days- it´s 8am and I´m just heading out the door to hopefully score El Martillo again. Swell is perfect 3m, and the wind should be picking up as we speak. Swinging NE on Saturday morning so back to Punta. Wow! I´ve had my new SUP for almost 3 weeks now and haven´t been able to use it as it´s been too windy every day- oh, well....

Monday 5 December 2011

Pic Of The Bunch- Air Chacho.

We got the wind which was promised on Saturday and got a pretty decent sail in at Punta with mast high waves and 5m sail. Again, we took to the water with the camera (1 hour shifts, me and Victor), and got some cool photos which I am sifting through as we speak- so far, this is my favourite shot, an air chacho, would have been perfect if the sky hadn´t been so grey. Still a great photo though...


Saturday 3 December 2011

Those easterly breezes...



We got our first run of easterlies yesterday and the day before, which meant that everyone and their dog scrambled to Majanicho. The first day was too light for me so I went SUPing instead, but yesterday was windy so I managed a short session. I had stuff to do in the morning so arrived at 12, just in time to get 20 minutes in the dying wind. Majanicho is pretty much a lightwind riding-only spot (it gets nice and windy there maybe twice every winter), and it tends to blow from early morning til mid-day so I wasn´t too surprised to miss it. Oh, well, good fun nevertheless. Sailed at Punta today on 5m, messy but good crack, and it looks as though the wind is turning east again tomorrow for the rest of the week so it´ll be back to Majanicho or, most likely, out with the SUP again- wicked. Here´s a couple of pics taken from the beach yesterday...



Welcome to the site!
Aswell as regular features and news updates from Fuerte, I am going to be using this site to promote my windsurfing clinics.
After 15 years on the island,having competed in the PWA freestyle world cup and now representing Fanatic Boards and North Sails, I have decided to give something back to the sport which has given me so much over the years.
My aim is to provide clinics "tailor-made"for each individual, with a strong emphasis on practical in-the-water instruction, backed up by on-the-beach tuition and video analysis. The consistent conditions here in Fuerte make learning so much easier and, perhaps equally important, more fun than the typically inconsistent, cold UK - why not come over for a week and improve your windsurfing by a year!!!

I can help with any manoeuvres from carve-gybe through to advanced jumping and freestyle, just email me with your wish list and we'll take it from there! Over the next few months, I am going to be video-chronicling manoeuvres which you can check out on the right in my tricktionary sections. This will give you some idea of the things we can work on, or, if you can't make it over here, you may find them useful to help understand and break down a manoeuvre you would like to learn (hopefully, the slow-mo will help in this respect!).Just click on the trick and scroll down..........
Anyway, keep checking it out as I have loads more in my bag of tricks and will be updating as and when I get the footage.
If you're interested, e-mail me on gibboinfuerte@yahoo.co.uk
See ya in Fuerte?
Stephen.............