This is a nice and fun video despite the lack of conditions we found along our snowkite trip in Europe together with my friend Jeremie Tronet… It was fun since we both come from french Caribbean islands (Martinique and Guadeloupe) and specially because Jeremie had never been snowboarding or snowkiting before… he comes from the jungle and had never gone out of it!! that was the perfect opportunity… 
We’ve had some hard conditions in -13ºC, which was already the end of the world for us!!! But fun… So here a bit of humor, we got style, we are bringing back the tendency from the 80s and people already started wearing them in France!!! That would be cool tho, at least people won’t miss you on the mountain!!
Enjoy Jerem’s piece of art and big thanks to everyone who helped and welcomed us during our trip!! Cheers mates!!
The Fun&Fly Kitecamp in Dakhla was a perfect week with lots of riding and great evolution from the 6 kiters I have been coaching. We were very well welcomed by the Hotel Océan Vagabond and Club Mistral which had the friendliest team I have met so far.
The evolution of my cool students (Bruno, Eric, Pierre, Jerome, Fred and Marie) was very pleasing to watch, they learnt new tricks everyday and they all had different levels, from doing a nice backloop transition to the huge kiteloop backloop and first surface handle passes.
The progress was fast and they all enjoyed as much as I did riding up to 6 hours a day, except when their bodies could not hold it anymore… lots of sun, blisters on the hands and painful muscles from so much exercise… but we certainly took advantage of every second by kiting, video and photo shooting to analyze the mistakes and new tricks, stretching after the sessions and ending with a few mojitos after a long day of exercise…
Spending some time in Dakhla at Océan Vagabond surprised me and it is certainly in my top 3 places to go to improve your riding and chill out in a nice surrounding where there is only a few things to think about: Kite, kite, kite, relax, nice food, good sleep, good atmosphere, and meeting other people on holidays enjoying as much as you do!!!
Thanks to Fun&Fly, the watersports travel agency from France with which I have organized this kitecamp, there will surely be more to come soon!!!
A few pics of the week!
Ma première news en français qui s’adresse donc au francophone!
Cette année je vais organiser des camps/clinics avec l’agence de voyage nº1 en France, Fun&Fly. Nous avons déjà prévu le premier camp à Dahkla du 10 au 18 Juin sur un spot plutôt incroyable pour naviguer tout les jours de la semaine sur un plan d’eau parfaitement plat.
L’objectif est de passer une bonne semaine en groupe tous logés sur place à l’apart’hotel Océan Vagabond qui offre des bungalows bien sympathiques avec vue on the spot! Nous passerons les journées ensemble et j’encadrerai les riders sur l’eau pendant une bonne partie de la journée. Le but est de progresser, apprendre de nouvelles figures, éviter des erreurs de nav, etc… le tout dans une bonne ambiance.
Nous feront les debriefings tranquilou le soir autour d’une bière, ou deux, en regardant les vidéos de la journée. Pour finir avec une session d’étirements qui nous fera du bien.
Donc si vous êtes chaud pour une bonne semaine d’adrénaline et de sport intense avec moi sous le soleil du Maroc, entre le lagon parfait et les vagues, n’hésitez pas à contacter mister Loic sur loic@fun-and-fly.com ou au 05 67 31 16 20.
PS: voici le Facebook d’Océan Vagabond pour vous faire une idée de la perfection du spot…
Last year, together with my caribbean mate Jeremie Tronet we decided to go and meet for first time Mitu Monteiro and to learn from his waveriding skills in Cape Verde!! It was fun to discover his island together with Jerem and professional photographer Manu Morel. I had the sudden need to discover a new exciting place by the end of January and thought about the perfect waves of Punta Preta, where we could surf and try to improve our waveriding… Mitu showed us his “secret” and not so secret spots and we enjoyed these 2 weeks of stay. Seeing him riding in the waves so easily and nicely was despairing me sometime, but also a good motivation to improve… there is a lot to do!
Jeremie came out with this funny and nice video, it was not the original purpouse of the trip but he managed to make a little piece of art once again, so big up to him!
I definitely recommend Cape Verde from October to March for the people who like to freestyle, waveriding and surfing everyday!!! here why I loved the place:
Strait after Gwada I came back home in Cannes and Jeremie Tronet happened to be around for family holidays. Just like last year in Cape Verde, we decided within a few hours to start a new trip together and have some fun.
This time it was a quite different location tho, a little road trip to the mountains in order to show Jerem’ how cold the snow can get… He had never snowboarded before and it was the opportunity to make a funny story out of it… We both are coming from French Caribbean islands (Martinique and Guadeloupe) and we were not quite in our elements at the mountains and living some -12ºC in Switzerland. It might sound ridiculous but when coming a few days before from +28ºC and getting into that fridge can be very hard.
The trip started in GAP, France, where we visited some friends of mine. We then headed to Geneva for a few days, where my friend Goody had invited us to come and ride their snowkite spots. Doing our first New Year party at a ski station was pretty nice, different from what we are used to but the spirit of the mountain is as nice as at the beach. The Swiss team that welcomed us was very friendly and we definitely enjoyed our stay in the Chalet and seeing the village covered with snow.
During our stay there, we probably had one of the most exhausting day of exercise. The plan was to climb for 45 min with our snowkite gear and all the cameras on our back, then rig the kites and go up the mountains all the way to the spot. It sounded amazing and would probably have been the most amazing snowkite day, except that the wind did not quite show up… Therefore we made the 45min be 1h15, then 1h45, 2h and probably more than 2h30… could not do more as we almost made it to the top. The way up there was particularly hard because we had to carry around 30kg of material in order to shoot Jeremie’s first snowkite session ever, but it did not really happen as the light was gone and the wind was very light.
Despite all this, the experience of being up the mountain with powder snow and enjoying the stunning view with friends was still amazing, so we anyway enjoyed the day and a nice “Raclette” for dinner was waiting for us!!!
The rest of the trip was much of the same, traveling around and trying new spots, discovering frozen lakes, snow, snow and more snow, and realizing that Caribbeans are not made for living in a cold place!!
We had a funny snowboard session back in Nice and Jeremie is improving a little at least . The weather here is amazing, about 23ºC at the sun… not the right temperature for snow but still enjoyable for mid january and we took advantage to go climbing a little…
We will be shooting some more snowkite action when the wind finally comes, and then our epic movie should be editable by mister Jerem’ the artist.
Here a few pics of the action, behind the scene and some fun… they talk by themselves and we are still working very very hard on our style!!! Killing it!
