This was our inaugural trip to Sri Lanka, and boy oh boy did it live up to expectations. Having very generously been handed an extra bank holiday care of The Queen, this trip was bound to be popular. That said we didn’t count on the wind putting Brazil to shame or the amazing food that was lavished upon us each evening, a veritable culinary delight which was never far from our minds. As a bonus the friendliest of locals always made us feel welcome where ever we went, and any trip in the back of a pickup was filled with waves, whoops and smiles and had us convinced that we were returning world cup winners or had just landed a Gold in the forthcoming Olympics.
Unsurprisingly the girls put on a fine show whilst all competing for aerial prowess. Jules, Frieda and Alison enjoyed placing some decent daylight between themselves and the water, initiating themselves into the chair of air and showing off with some air gybes too, with Alison throwing in some cheeky rotations to boot.
Whilst on the subject of air the boys do deserve a mention too. Matthew with a slightly shorter trip from Australia this time, was going large. Seeing a big man flying so high on an 8m pretty much summed up the conditions. His Raleys were to die for, as were his kiteloops and downloops – but his after lunch warm ups kept us entertained. Rich as always was gunning for the heavens even with a hefty dose of holiday flu! Pete controlled his jumps, nailed his air gybes and then went on to fully claim the front and back loops, 10 in a row wasn’t it? Brendan was floating around up in the heavens, , air gybing with style, working on his blind and claiming the Raley. Rafa was tempted back onto his twin tip by the afternoon winds for some  large air and powered back loop kiteloops on his 7, but continued his homework on the surfboard, and added the strapless airgybe to his box of tricks. Andy was on a total mission, with no thought spared for self preservation, stomping the pop to blind with surface pass, back to blinds and some frighteningly respectable kite loops, acquiring some nice bruises on the way.
A memorable trip on so many levels – oodles of all day wind, a gastronomic surprise, and a lot of fun!
