Kite Life

Safaga: 

Brilliant place to learn and the only place I’ve been with constant wind. Going out on a boat together every day meant that we got to know the others on the course really well. My instructor, Dave was  fantastic . I was really impressed by how safety conscious he was, how he realised that kiting can be a bit scary for some (not just girls!) and that although he speaks like a girl, he shouts like a man (his words!) He was really helpful, every evening after the other instructors had gone he would still be there fixing kit, helping people etc.  General consensus was that he was a top bloke. Gareth had Phil and said he was really good too. 

Really liked the accommodation (menaville)- very handy - good food, nice shisha bar and very conducive to group dining with the others. Dave orgainsed a meal out to a local restaurant and Julius led an alcohol fueled night out (I will send photos!….) 

Only slight criticism is that on arriving in hurghada, Dave did not have us on his list and we could either wait 2 hours or so for the next flight to arrive and get a lift back with him or get a taxi. we got a taxi meaning that we paid for our transfer twice (to waveriders and to the taxi). (oh, and there weren’t any small/ medium waverider rash vests and large is too big so if you have any smaller ones I could swap it with……….):-) 

El Gouna: 

Too expensive!! We were paying 70p for a beer in safaga and they were charging £2.40 in the movenpick. I supposed that it to be expected for a resort but it was a shock to the system non the less! It also meant that kiting was more expensive. We did a couple of hours at the movenpick which ended up costing £100 for 2 (supervision, equipment etc) (we’d paid about 25 euros for an extra hour lesson in safaga). we then looked at mangroovey beach - very crowded as Julius said it would be, before moving on to Red Kite Zone. They were by far the most friendly of the el gouna places. All the kit was really new (which after having a bit a rope as my board leash in the movenpick and getting rope burns and a helmet that was too big and obscured my vision) was a relief.

There were only about 5 people on the water, which was amazing and it was cheaper than both movenpick and mangroovey. the guys picked us up in the morning and took us back if needed and will organise lunch if requested. A good find! We had a bit of tuition but must admit it wasn’t up to safaga standards…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 20th, 2006 at 3:13 pm and is filed under Kite Surfing Egypt. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.