So i went to the cook islands last month for 10 days, here are some photos. There was solid wind the whole time, most days it was above 20 knots and a few days there it was nuking 30+, with just 2 days under 15 knots.
The missus and I spent 6 nights on Rarotonga (main island) and 3 nights on Aitutaki (outlying island) but if i went again i would just stay the whole time on Aitutaki. Really a beautiful place, awesome people and cranking wind in August/September.
The view from the beach at the Muri sailing club, Rarotonga. Best place to kite here on a S/SE wind (trade winds)
Kiting Muri lagoon in 12-15 knots (light wind day) on the sonic 11m
The view from the balcony of our hotel, the Moana Sands resort. Highly recommended place to stay, a few days i kited straight out the front of the hotel but the launch area was sketchy and you will note the large brain coral in the lagoon
....... Wind was perfectly cross-shore here, cranking most days above 20 knots. A brilliant place to kite if you spot your landings well and don't come down on a head of coral that's 10cm below the surface
My girlfriend took some good shots of some of the biggest jumps i've ever done here, she is currently scanning the negatives so i will see what she comes up with and post em here later.
Baileys
and fresh coconut milk, woo! I drank steinlager but the missus likes this stuff so i tried some to make her happy.
Odd street sign, and our hired scooter. Takes 45 mins to get around the whole island of rarotonga!
On the way up!
Aitutaki lagoon, right in front of the hotel. Just magic. 25 knots blowing cross shore over here. Unfortunately no rideable waves, the pacific ocean breaks right onto the reef outside and it hits HARD onto about 5cm of water with sharp coral under it. It would technically be possible to kite certain areas of the shore break but extremely dangerous and life-threatening. Most of the time it was just dumping on the reef, no real peeling waves anyway. Since i like flat water and going big, this did not worry me.
There are outlying islands that you can kite as well, just get a local with a boat to take you out to One Foot or Honeymooners Island, these are supposed to be brilliant but we didn't worry about it because we were so happy where we were.
Complimentary use of the hotel's kayaks meant we could paddle across to the small island (in the background) and launch from there.
Doesn't get much better than this.
So who's up for a kiting-dedicated trip next year? August and September are pretty much guaranteed to be windy as hell!
