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Adventure on lake garda

There is a group of 5 italian boys from Riva that are learning kitesurfing with us. Saturday they had there first lesson. Manuel is the only one speaking English and he translates the words I do not know in Italian. These guys are so much fun to teach! The first lesson they all reached the goals: downwind bodydragging and relaunching the kite. Andrea did an upwind bodydrag without getting the theorie of it. At the end the wind dropped and they were swimming for a while. The lake is getting warmer, so after the lesson they jumped in again for fun!

We are really enjoying it to teach them and we were looking forward to sunday afternoon. The wind didn’t look too good but it picked up. I had 4 of them doing upwind bodydraggin in the water, when the motor of my boat stopped. I didn’t no why but maybe the level of gasoline was too low. After one minute Alexandro, the teacher of the school in Navene, drove by. Alltough I am normally very scared of him I managed to get his spare benzine. I think in Italian he told me how stupid I was to fill the tank not enough… or something like that.
I hope that this extra benzine would solve the problem. But it didn’t! The engine still did not start. I coached all the guys back to the boat. Only William was too far away. So I took a board and kitesurfed to him to tell him to bodydrag to the boat. He managed to do it:) So I was with 5 Italians floating on the water. I called some teacher from the Navene school for help. And after some time Alexandro took my students and Christiaan rescued me and the boat to the harbour of Malcesine. There we found out that the engine had a big problem. No way it was going to bring us back to Limone. My students were brought to the beach of Navene. I was in the harbour, so I was worrying my head of about them. They are the best students ever, they found me! But how to get to limone?
Alexandro offered to bring us back with his mega RIB. This was a very nice surprise because normally all I understand from his Italian are some bad words and angry looks. I was pretty sure he hates me for some reason. His boat is very huge and has 225 hp. so in no time we were back.. We waved our rescuers goodbye and walked back to the school. After a pizza and two beer we decided it was an adventurous day The next day I brought the boat to Garda to the Yamaha dealer. A few days later it was fixed! Great! Some new parts and some cleaning did the job!

Thanks Max, Chris and Alex from kiteclub Navene!

6. June 40 knots of wind on lago di Garda..!

Yes indeed…waauw!! Sometimes nature does things that really amaze you. Also this day. In the morning  it all started really sad with a lot of rain and no wind. Klaus was ready to get his first lesson, but unfortunately the weather didn’t get better in the morning so we moved his lesson to the afternoon. Sitting, waiting, wishing… no wind in the afternoon. So we decided to go home and do some work on the computer and before that do some shopping in the supermarket. While we were looking for lots of ice tea, bbq stuff, snacks and waxstrips, Philip (one of the clients who’s using our ‘join the ride’service every weekend) called us that the wind picked up and we should go on the water.
So we went back as fast as the tunnels and traffic jam let us, and during the ride to Limone we saw that the wind was very strong and big waves were all over the lake. Great!
We went out on the lake with 5 persons and 4 kites, and the wind was really strong. It was Klaus’very first lesson on the water, so we could imagine he might we scared, but he wasn’t scared at all! He did really great with the kite and kept it in the air almost all the time. He is talented!
We dropped Philip and Petra as well, and Philip was quite overpowered using a 10m kite. Petra used a 6m, which was enough for these conditions, even for jumping.
 After a while everybody was safely back on the boat, and it was a miracle no one got seesick because of the huge waves. They were at least 2,5 meter high and sitting in the motorboat driving a against the waves was like sitting in a rollercoaster. Fortunately Mika was totally in control and she drove the boat around the lake slow and careful.
When we arrived nearby the harbor to leave the boat there, Mika received a message that it was not possible to park the boat in the harbor again. There have been some problems before about a place for the motorboat and it looked like we had to park the boat outside of the harbor again.
We put all the stuff on the wall and were all happy we survived J

On our way back to Riva Philip called us that one kite was missing. It must have fall out of the boat during our time on the water he said. So Mika went back by boat and tried to find it, which was very hard because of the big waves and strong current. Unfortunately she couldn’t find anything, so we went looking for it by car on several places. The next day we went to all the surf schools in Riva and Torbole but nobody found it. So the chance that the kite will show up again gets less, and that is so frustrating! It must be somewhere! Now we are thinking what to do next, but we still hope someone will find the kite and brings it back to its owner.

At the end of the story we were eating a pizza at Bella Riva at 22.15, and the day ended at little bit different than we expected.

4. June What a wonderful day

Today was great! We woke up really (too ) early to start with the first lessons at 7 in the morning. Unfortunately there was not enough north wind to go on the water, so the student learned everything about the kite in theory and that seemed to be a good preparation for the afternoon!
Because suddenly at 1 o’clock we saw the flags starting to flag and the water became more rough. Everybody hurry! There is wind so let’s start! In 5 minutes all 4 students arrived at the school and they got dressed up as fast as they could.
The students already knew how to build up the kite, so in no time the boat was filled with 4 adrenaline driven people, 4 kites and a board. Ready for take-off!
The wind was so good, that they were able to go on with the lessons till 6 o’clock in the afternoon and deadly tired they arrived at the school again, but very satisfied. Check the pictures of the comeback of the students!

We were so happy that the wind came today, because yesterday was quite boring. For one moment we were afraid today would be the same, but this morning Mika explained Mae everything about the motorboat and we cleaned up the motorboat of the windsurfschool. It is a pretty old boat with a powerfull motor (45pk), but we can use it in the weekends when there are lessons and lifts, so we need two boats than. A lot of old stuff and weird things came out of that thing!

We also found some nice hotels who want to cooperate with us, so it’s nice to offer our clients this new service! Soon you will find the hotels and package deals on the website.

Well, it was a long day, but also a satisfying day!

Arrival Mae and launch of new website!

Yesterday Mae arrived to join the team of Wind Riders. She will assist on the beach and drive our second boat for “lifts” and “supervision”. This will give me the oppurtunity to focus more on the teaching.

This is the first blog post of our new website. Twice per week we will post an update about the weather, upcoming events and other interesting things. We are very happy with our new website. It looks awesome! Thanks you Wilmer!

1 june. good morning north wind, no South.

2. june. no good wind.

3. June. good morning north wind, no afternoon wind.

But it has been sunny and all the beach bars opened in Limone so we have been chilling on the beach and doing some wakeboarding.

Week 2: a lot of North Wind

This week the North wind was pretty strong. And was up until the after noon. On some days we also had kiteable South wind. But most of the time only the Trentino (forbidden) part of the lake got the wind.

I discoverd a new nice biking area. A very nice road takes you behind Arco into the Valley. You bike by the nature climbing walls and trought the appel trees. At the moment it is all very beautiful cause everything has flowers.

This track is good for city bikes. After Dro the real hardcore track starts. It is a track that goes to a plateau which gives a marvelous view of the valley, castelli di arco and still a bit of lake garda.

Only to get there is a hard way. I bike with clickys, and normally that goes fine, I click out in time. But this time I couldn’t help falling twice. Not to painfull just both my hips are blue. After the crashes I lowerd my sadle and didn’t click in. Than it is was fine. Some times biking was impossible and we had to carry the bikes.

After this off the road track we reach Pietramurata and the Lake of Cavedine. It is a pretty big nice lake. Many Italians go there for picknicks and bbq’s.

The way back we took the autostrada back to Dro and than the same track trough the Valey.

I can recomment the first part and the lake for everyone and the hardcore track betreen Dro and Pietramurata for the advanced bikers:)

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