In our kitesurfing club we received one more member, this report tells about it: Mallorca kite course in July with Mathilda
July 2015, on our kite club we received the visite of Mathilde, a lovely, friendly and sportive girl from Denmark that has decided to take advantage or Mallorca appealing light wind conditions to learn kitesurfing during her holidays.
Winds at that time of the year are thermals, in other words, wind will come but you can’t tell how strong will be or at what time will arrive, mostly that will be around noon, though sometimes this can be a little later.
Needless to say that Mallorca it is a sunny island, meaning that you have to take precautions if you’re planning to spend 3 hours under the sun, considering that if you are in the water, to the normal sun radiation you have to add sun reflection in the water surface, which will make things even worse and … there’s not much help if you spread your skin with sun lotion, as, after a while it will most certainly be washed away, therefore, the best advice is to use a long sleeve lycra and a hat.
After 9 hours lessons with its ups and downs, achievemen and failures, Mathilde was having her first successful waterstart and rides over the -this day- calm and almost windless waters of Pollentia Bay.
The next sequence of photos will show Mathilde’s progression until she was able to ride. In fact, it would have been much easier task if the wind had helped a little more, as we had barely 8/10 knots this days. Mmm … the elusive and always tricky Mallorcan thermal winds didn’t help much to our friend this time but it wasn’t really too much of a problem to our skilled Mathilda.
Mathilde, didn’t give up and keep practicing. Now you are in the right direction and with a little more practice this fifty/hundred first meters standing on the kiteboard and riding will become hundreds and hundreds -if not thousands- of meters.
Well, don’t dare to go too far anyway, remember you should just ride as far as you should be ready, in case of a problem, to swim back to shore again.
Mathilde, congratulations, we are happy about your echievements and we are looking forward your next visite to our kite club and to Mallorca.