Kitesurf Atlas, Kiteboarding Holidays, Kite Surf Lessons

Along my constant quest for kiting partners, I managed to meet two interesting characters nick-named Jesus (or so I call him) and Mongo. Jesus is one of the coolest older dudes I’ve ever met. I won’t say his age so I don’t ruin his endless opportunities of picking up gorgeous young single women. When your “that” age, have a 6 pack and kite like a m*th*r f**k*r your bound to have your pick of the litter and I don’t want to ruin that for him.

Late one hungover Sunday night I stopped in one of the many local pubs in San Juan del Sur to get a glass of water and hang with my bartender buddy. One of the other patrons sitting at the bar was interested in taking kitesurfing lessons the next day with me so I gave him my number and told him to give me a call. Normally when this happens people never follow through so I wasn’t expecting much. The next day he did call last minute and wanted to go out for an afternoon lesson. I was not really feeling too into teaching that day but making money is always good especially when you live in a tourist town. We got together and headed out to Kite Beach around 1:30pm. When we arrived the wind was only around 10 knots and I was a little worried we couldn’t complete “day 1” of the IKO lesson plan. Typically the wind here in Nicaragua dies off between 11am and 3pm leaving early in the morning and pre-sunset as good riding times.

Things are starting to come along with kitesurfing here in Nicaragua. I have been busy either teaching or taking people out riding. More and more people are coming up to me on the street or at a restaurant asking for lessons or just about riding here. It's definitely taken time and daily commitment in spreading the word to even get this far. The one thing i've learnt so far is how important web content is. A couple of clients of mine took me out for dinner after our lesson and explained to me how i'm going to make myself know on the internet and progress faster in business. They made me set up a twitter account (which i'm just starting to figure out) and starting making updates regularly. They could not stress enough how important a healthy, no obscene amount of content was and how linking it all together will make less work for me. They told me business's hire people to just sit on a computer all day and create content for them which can make their company.

Sometimes being a girl in an extreme sport is discouraging. When I first started riding in Nicaragua I was ending a 1 1/2 year non-riding streak. I was sure I could get back in the water and within a short period of time get back to where I was but that wasn’t the case. My first few rides ended in disaster. My gear was all new to me and many things were either broken or not working well. The area was completely unridden by anyone else so I had to deal with a lot of unknown debris in the water. After totally eating it and having to swim over 1/2 hour back to shore more then once, I felt mortified. My friends from Brazil I used to ride with kept encouraging me via facebook and reminded me that i’m a professional. In between when I was able to ride I concentrated on the business end of kitesurfing and started applying for sponsorship. I worked hard on getting photo’s, stories and my future plans out there and eventually the sponsors started rolling in.