Offshore Winds, Boats Rescues - What an Experience - Kitesurfing in Arugam Bay

While 99 percent of the kitesurfers in Lanka stayed on the West Coast, 1 percent decided to try out Arugam Bay. Offshore winds are not ideal conditions but the sea and wave riding conditions were too tempting. Learning points at Arugam Bay;

1. Its always good to have a standby boat ready when kitesurfing in unfamiliar conditions

2. Always negotiate a price prior (we ended up paying 1,500 for a boat rescue which would have not even consumed 250 rupees worth of fuel, this after some negotiations bringing the price down from 5,000 which the boatman first quoted!

3. A lookout is always handy to have

4. The contours of the land is such that main point or stardust might be good launch and landing points. You do not want to kite near the sand hill near main point unless its on shore winds

• The 4th trip this season, the place continues to marvel. Toursim had certainly picked up and we were quite pleased at the amount of development work taking place. Sadly however we did observe that there needs to be some nice planning and environmental awareness of the towns folk.
• Surfing at Okanda, we witnessed how polythene bags were just strewn all over the place. We also saw two dead crocodiles. Could it be linked to the degradation of these animal's habitat? We hope that these issues are addressed before its too late.
• We dont want Arugam Bay to be like a Hikkaduwa or Unawatuna let alone a Colombo! Arugam Bay certainly rocks, in a month we'll be there again - hopefully the problem of garbage will be looked into.