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OVERVIEW:
DANGERS & DIFFICULTIES
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Kite Overview:
Relevent to ALL islands
of French Polynesia.
(For specific Island destinations, kite or click here.) |
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Dangers and difficulties: For the most part, kiting in French Polynesia is a fairly safe sport, but having made that claim, knowing the dangers and difficulties of the local conditions is important if you want to have a good kiting experience here. There are really only a few dangers worthy of your attention, but pay heed or suffer!
1) Coral: Yes, that stuff you're not supposed to touch or pick up... it's sharp! And it's also hard and plentiful in the Tahitian waters... Beware of the local undersea layout of your particular kitespot. In some places, you can have huge wide open expanses of perfect 5 foot deep white sandy beach bottoms with just a few giant coral heads dotted inbetween (in spots you can't see until you're on top of them), only inches away from the surface... If you were to boost and land on one of these, you could be hurting REAL bad! In other spots near the reef or on otherwise perfect and innocent looking "motus" (small islands), you might encounter
a minefield of staghorn coral in the shallows that will happily rip your feet (and/ or body, kite, etc.) to shreds. Most commonly, however, un-experienced kiters end up stepping on little tiny fragments of irritating coral that imbed themselves in their feet and bum them out... (wear booties to avoid this!)
The thing to know is: listen to where the locals tell you NOT to go, because they're telling you from experience!
2) Offshore winds: Occassionally, the winds will get "shifty" and may decide to blow offshore. Be smart and realize that you DON'T want to get blown out past the coral reefs and out to the open sea. Tahiti is in the middle of the Pacific ocean and if you kite out of sight, you're likely to be truly screwed! (i.e: sunburnt and thirsty floating shark bait). The basic rules of kiting apply here: Don't kite alone and if you do, let others know where you're doing it and when you're expected to be off the water and back to your hotel sipping cold ones...
3) Rough launch spots: Launch spots can be crazy on some of the islands! Small beaches, near palm trees or rocks or houses are not uncommon. Depending on the particular spot, self launching can be a bitch, to say the least, (if not potentially hazardous) if you don't know what you're doing. You often have to wade out into the water and self launch your kite in waist deep water from a beach or coral-free spot not much larger than the kite itself...
for this reason, many locals have become quite proficient at WATER LAUNCHING their kites from the getgo. (not easy for a beginner)
Again, good advice here is to watch and listen to the locals and see what and where they do it.
Last note on these launch spots is: not all of them are so gnarly! Most are fine and workable in one way or another and if you do have difficulties with the launch, there's usually a local willing to help you get your kite up in the air.
GETTING ISLAND SPECIFIC:
The following links give kiting condition specifics for each of the Society Islands listed:
(Launch spots, local conditions, tips, what to do when the wind's NOT blowing, where to stay, and more...)
Note: If you don't find the answers you're looking for on these pages, it may be because we just dont know the answer! We don't claim to know all the details of Tahitian kiteboarding, but merely try to be a good general guide for now... As time goes on, this site will get better and more informative.
WE'RE OPEN TO KITER'S SUGGESTIONS, EXPERIENCES AND NOTES! If you go to French Polynesia, (or live and kite there) and have a kite experience or knowledge that would help this site out, please let us know and we'll post it for the benefit of the next Tahitian bound kiter!
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2002-2003 Tahiti Sun Travel Network. All text, photos, and design rights reserved and not to be duplicated without permission.
