Kitesurf Greece – Wind & Water – The Kite Safari
Ahhh the boat trip. It all started in Athens as an idea to take Ben Bowd and another rider to some uncharted spots around the Greek islands. Initially Dimitris Softas was supposed to join us, but unfortunately couldn’t make it so sent his protege Lykourgos instead. I met Lykourgo (Wolfy) at the dock as his sponsors We Ride Local rolled in straight from Raches in Northern Greece. He was this dishevelled little kid, who had obviously spent a lot of time in the sun, and just oozed energy.
We left the port in a hurry to blast through the oncoming storm and make it to Mykonos by the morning. That of course never happened. We did get to Mykonos eventually, but the storm most certainly hit us. As the winds started to pick up and the stars were covered by clouds, everything started to go wrong. The sail got jammed as we were overpowered, so we were literally on edge until we decided to force it. In a rush to take it down it tore a 1 meter hole in the bottom. Then the man overboard signal goes. Ben is nowhere to be found and most of the crew were zombied out on dramamine. The boat was now swaying almost along a 100 degree pivot, with waves crashing, and we were missing a person. The alarm was so loud though that even the deepest sleepers were woken, and luckily so because just as we were about to panic Ben shows up out of the spare cabin at the front of the boat, “just coming to get a biscuit” he said.
Over the next 12 days we travelled around 4 incredible islands in the Cyclades, fixed our sail, met some amazing people and did some heavy riding.
Huge thanks to We Ride Local, SaltBeat, Kite Mykonos, Ride With The Gods and Pantelis Lavdas for their help an support!
Kitesurf Greece – TTAG… Wind&Water by VICE
What’s it like to kitesurf in a country like Greece? Where you get about 9 months of prefect wind, are surrounded by beautiful waters and the temperatures… let’s face it, never really drop too far. Well who better to ask than the 4 best riders in the country… So we packed our bags, loaded up all our camera gear and went on a mission to discover the best spots to ride, the best tricks and the most epic locations around Greece…
Wind & Water is the kind of project that takes on a life of its own. In fact I find this is the case with all projects that lead to something good. Roughly 6 months of work on this bad boy, spread over 2 years, with lots of ups and downs, and lots and lots of helping hands.
It took us to a whole bunch of different spots around Greece, and got us into all sorts of pickles, like that time our sail got torn in the middle of a storm or that time we got chased by the… never mind. From Lefkada to Evia and the Cyclades islands to Costa Navarino, we heard the same words repeated over and over and over again until I literally couldn’t bear it any more… “Λες να βάλει αέρα;” – “You think it’s gonna blow?”.
And so in light of getting this bad boy wrapped up, I tip my hat to the crew: Alex, Dimitri, Ben, Lykourgo, Softa, Tom, Youri, Peter, Billo, Oresti, Luke, Thomas, Rami and everyone else. Keep on pumping you crazy beasts…
Thanks to VICE Greece and Netwix for their help in producing this, and Loukas Zorzos for the graphic design. Now go watch the whole series on their web channel by clicking here – www.netwix.gr/thethingaboutgreecewindandwaterbyvice