MCU headed to Diani Beach for some kite surfing over the Christmas break in 2019 and what can I say,
we’re already planning the next trip as we’re totally hooked.
We wanted to do the 9 hour course, however the wind season started a little late this year so only got in 7 hour
of lessons in in Diani.
At the end, we were just about able to stand up on the board, however less successful in staying on it
with many face plants and some lost sunglasses. Sounds scary, but the face plants didn’t actually hurt
and it was pretty amusing to watch the others face plant (and them watching me obviously).
But speaking of how hooked we are: some of us drove 1 1/2 hour from Kilifi each way to take an extra lesson
after the first night of partying at the Kilifi festival. It was totally worth it though with some pretty good
kiting by the end of the lesson.
For anyone that’s looking for a new sport that’s easily combined with a holiday, we could not
recommend kite surfing more and the Kenyan coast and Zanzibar are great places to learn with warm
water, wide beaches and safe wind conditions that mean you won’t get dragged out to the sea
Trip Planning tips:
- Get to Diani Beach on the Kenyan Coast (Drive from UG as we did or fly to Diani or Mombasa)
- Book yourself into Stilts Treetops (The owner was incredibly friendly and did not tire of the
many questions that we kept throwing at him and you get to use the facilities of the adjacent
Flamboyant hotel with a great pool) - Book a kite surfing course with Kenyan Kite (They were super flexible and accommodating about
rearranging our lessons to get the best wind conditions and lesson times for us. Also we had a
2:1 student-teacher ratio which is super important as you only have 1 kite per teacher and
switch around during the lesson) - Plan on staying for a few extra days after the course to do supervised kite rentals (We should
have done this to nail down the kiting properly)
