Hey everyone!! University is closed for the summer and I'm flying to Mauritius to play in the Southern winter. The last days promised huge conditions with big waves and perfect wind. Tom Hartmann and Dani Bikich will be with me and I'm sure we will come up with lots of photo and video material. I will try to keep the page updated showing what the conditions are like!!

It was the best way to start a windsurfing trip, totally sick and not able to do any sports... Mauritius, an island West of Madagascar, almost the whole thing covered by a reef belt, crystal clear water and air, a tropical paradise! La Gaulette's the town where we're at, 15min from the windsurfing spot Le Morne, in Mauritius' South. The average income is about 300 euro a month, so it's a quite poor environment, especially in comparison to Europe. We actually do have a perfectly equipped apartement with sea view, packed with seven Austrians at the moment.

The wind kicked off with some solid 4.7 (from the left), some waves on the outer reef (Manawa), but no real swell yet. The lagoon inside provides great freestyle, a little bit too flat for my taste, hahaha... Thursday was the best day so far, masthigh and light wind, so really glassy water and just nice and smooth sailing! It for sure can go on like this!!!!

Finally Tom arrived and it was time for me to check out One Eye, THE perfect wave spot around. The wave is running and tubing pretty damn fast, so you have to go downwind full speed what makes goiters' and aerials' re-entries quite difficult! The feeling though, priceless... The reefs lies under knee deep water and the smaller the waves, the closer they break over it. I just had to sacrifice my 4.7 sail yesterday :) Manawa also challenged my gear the other day with waves up to 6m, but little to almost no wind, so just perfect for mother nature to play with you and let you swim for hours...

The swell is kinda up and down (somewhere in between 1 and 4m), so we didn't really have the chance to do a wave shooting from the boat in One Eye yet, but I added some freestyle pics to the gallery. Furthermore the wind was very light beginning last week (and the water crowded), but is now getting back to usual. The boat and the crew is ready, so we are just waiting for the next days with good swell and wind..........

Dani was flying in and brought us some big days with sets over masthigh!! We were four people out (two kiters) and had an absolute killer session. One Eye was rocking quite often the last time and we shot from a platform, built up on the reef. I already updated the ::gallery:: with some new pics. Unfortunately we are forced to put the tower down every day and bring it in and out with a boat, enforced by the local Coast Guard. After four weeks of sailing One Eye there's surprisingly all of my gear left and it only marked me with some bruises and spines of sea urchins when I got washed over the shallow reef. The wind was picking up a lot and let me rig my 4.2, well powered up! July and August are definitely the windiest months (but also the most crowded ones), but the swells didn't really roll in at first.

I still have three weeks to go, so I hope we will have the chance to build up the tower again and shoot some more pictures as the forecast looks promising.......

The last couple weeks of my trip were dominated by good swells, but much less wind than August or July. We used the windless days to improve our surfing skills on the Little Reef in Le Morne (which works with low tide and completely no wind) and Tamarin (which needs a little South Westerly swells). It was definitely lots of fun, although the atmosphere on the water could have been a little better, talking about localism... For windsurfing there have been some big days, but the greatest one without me, cause I had to cut up my foot and couldn't walk for a couple days; bummer!! A flatwater spot near Grand Bay (a spot for Northerly winds) really impressed me with its water colours and scenery, where Flora made some great pictures out of the water. I also used the mastmount videocamera to do some freestyle shots and we took a surfboard to get an inside view of One Eye. I'm now working on a little Mauritius' vid and I put it online as soon as possible.

Looking back, I can say it has been two incredible months with great friends and One Eye being one of the most amazing waves I have ever seen, down-the-line riding with no compromise!! Two other wave spots (the little reef better for jumping and Manawa with big waves but not that powerful) and a perfect freestyle lagoon make Mauritius a spot for everyone! Furthermore you can make it really low budget and lots of people from Austria being there on vacation make it even easier to find a crib or a car! Ropsen, La Gaulette's inofficial chief, always has something to rent out; for more information just drop an email! I personally liked September the best, cause of less people and better waves. 2007 might be another year for me flying in the deep South and coming back to this tropical paradise!!