HISTORY
Discussing a windsurf session has almost become an afterthought to the subtleties that go into the sessions and all the surrounding vibes, both good and bad. However, before getting into the old “bro it was mast high and amazing”, I should shed a little history on the long history of sessions that Kai and I have shared together, which extend well beyond the early years in Cabo Verde.
Kai and I first started riding waves together on Maui, but not even windsurfing. He moved over a skinny long-haired haole mainland kook from Palo Alto, but he had a car! I was already a die-hard surf addict, so I used to convince Kai to pick me up at about 5 am, where we would go to Kahului harbour or Pakaukaulo before school. I was probably about 13 at the time and would head out to the peak and leave Kai to fend for himself on the inside reforms, all under the guise of “hooking him up”. Well his commitment has paid off, as now, many years later, he’s not only one of our sport’s most established wave sailors, but also an accomplished surfer, who’s charged some very heavy waves around the world. Flash forward 30 years and Kai is now the one in the know and “hooks me up” with his forecasts and analytical approach to the conditions, which when combined with my “It’s good, let’s go” style of forecasting, has consistently given us the best sessions in Cabo Verde for the last 20 or so odd years. This year in particular was extra good, as there were no agendas. No big story trying to get told, no one-upmanship with the other pros, just solid conditions which happened to get documented by my buddy Gabriele Rumbolo, an aspiring, extremely humble, cool photographer.
ON A ROLL
This season saw swell after swell lining up in March. I was back and forth between Portugal and Cabo Verde. My family is based in Portugal for school etc. while I’m holding the reins on some new adventures we are branching into in Cabo Verde. As is the norm, Kai and I were chatting virtually and he bolted down for some swell, without much wind, but scored a bit of quite decent Ponta Preta. When I rolled back into town I basically looked at Kai and the forecast and pretty much told him what he wanted to hear, ‘You need to stay!’ It was the right call. We strolled into some epic days of surfing, windsurfing and good times.