Hugo de Sousa and Loick Spicher set out from Brazil for a shared mission. The 17 year old Hugo de Sousa from Brazil, who has made a name of himself with his outstanding Air Moves, was not able to show his skills in the difficult gusty and choppy Fuerteventura conditions during the PWA events last year. To get closer to his dream, becoming World Champion he’d have to train more and get more consistent in his moves in all kind of conditions. Together with the Swiss windsurfer and his friend Loick Spicher and the support from Pousada Windjeri he has now the possibility to train at different windsurfing spots and to travel to the freestyle events.
After their trip to Venezuela they travelled to Bonaire.
Story by Loick Spicher
BONAIRE
Bonaire! What a lovely island it is… To windsurf again on this crystal turquoise blue water, in-between turtles and other sea life, is just amazing. We have been on the island for exactly one month. The luck was on our side as we had every day wind since December, first in Brazil, then in Venezuela and now here on Bonaire!
The nice thing here, different to other places, is that you have lots of hours of wind during day. The wind usually blows really early in the morning, drops around midday and picks up again in the evening. This allows us to sail for about 4-6 hours per day with nice breaks in between. And what’s great, is that so many local guys are just ripping out here. To train with so many other guys and to push each other really motivates. We had already several epic sessions until it was getting dark.
LIGHT WIND TRAINING ON BONAIRE
On Bonaire we are using only 5.2 and 4.7 sails. In the beginning Hugo was pretty annoyed of that light wind. It might be less fun than strong powered up wind as we have in Camocim (Hugo’s home spot), but it is a very good training and it’s really important to improve your technique and light wind skills for competitions. The whole training in Venezuela and this month here helped Hugo already a lot further, sailing in a variety of conditions and in really light wind. He was able to improve his technique and gets more and more airtime in light wind, too. We didn’t bring a 5.2 to Venezuela but luckily got them yesterday thanks to Youp who brought them from Europe. Hugo was already trying it and was just stoked about feeling power in his new 5.2 RRD freestyle sail.
Super cool is having Kuma back on Bonaire as well! He is everyday there on the water together with his girlfriend filming us and cutting small clips together afterwards. He is so friendly to all the people here and even offered Kuma T-shirt‘s. So you can look forward for many other action clips from the riders here!
Taty Frans & Hugo de Sousa
JIBE CITY AND SURF HOSTEL
We store our gear at Jibe city and usually hang out there during the day. The Jibe city family and the whole windsurfing school is just awesome. It’s a pleasure to be there every day!
As for accommodation we are staying at the Youp Schmit’s Surf hostel, which is situated 10 min from Sorobon Beach by car. The hostel crew is more than friendly and always offered us a super service. The place is well relaxed, as it is located outside of the city and halfway from the beach. We feel really good here and are having a good time. Youp is renting us a small old but pretty stylish Jeep, so that we can get to town or to the beach whenever we want.
Their car
Apart from sailing we are looking forward to have some days off to explore the island a bit, go snorkelling and check out all the other nice beaches. We are really looking forward for this month as many other PWA riders will get here to prepare for the upcoming event. We will be an even bigger whole bunch of friends here and this just announces a great time!!!
The second video of our travel in Venezuela will come online soon, stay tuned! Loick
Hey Loick,
nice story, fun to read. Hope you guys are doing well, was nice sailing with you.
Lot´s of wind for your ongoing trip and greets to Hugo,
Daniel