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For a novice learning to kitesurf can be a painful and exhausting process but when it finally comes together it is worth the wait.

Kitesurfing is a smorgasbord of wind and water sports, combining elements of parasailing, surfing, wakeboarding, windsurfing, and halfpipe skateboarding, among others, to create an extreme sport so visually astonishing that it almost makes Jesus’ walking on water look mundane.

Kitesurfing is the fastest growing extreme sport in the world and also one of the youngest. In its modern form it is not even ten years old and has skyrocketed in popularity over the last few years, primarily due to the advance of modern safety systems and its spreading see-for-yourself reputation as the hottest sport around.

A kitesurfer can be surfing upwind one second and the next be soaring 30 or more feet over the water, enjoying a bird’s eye view or wowing the beach viewers with a back loop. With only a board and kite, which packs into a backpack, one can kitesurf practically anywhere there is wind and a watery expanse.

The idea behind kitesurfing is simple enough: a power kite pulls the kitesurfer on a compact surfboard over the surface of the water. The inflatable kite is tethered onto the kitesurfer’s harness by a bar, which is used to pilot the kite.

As with all good things, kitesurfing has its risks. The sport has led to the coinage of a new word – kitemare – to describe bad times while kite surfing. One of the most notorious is Erik Ecks’ 39-second kitemare. Ecks’ got caught up in a freak thermal and was launched 50 metres in the air over Mokuleia Beach Park, Hawaii.

Surfcyprus instructor George Dodd, 23, had a kitemare when first learning on a 5-metre foil kite. At the time he had had no instruction and Dodd tried to launch his foil kite in a gale behind some trees, which he thought would block the wind. As a result he was launched 40-feet into the air.

“But it can be a safe sport if you approach it in the right way,” Dodd said. “Most of the accidents happen on land. And there’s no reason why you need to be fooling around or doing stupid things on or near the land. Also, modern safety systems have come a long way, so if in danger you can pop your safety button and your kite will instantly depower and drop.”

Kitesurfing does lack the Zen purity of surfing. But it is such an adaptable and flexible sport that at advanced levels one can incorporate surfing into it. You can use the kite to surf over to a wave and then, once riding it, depower the kite, so that you are only surfing. Then when the ride is over, you power your kite up again and surf over to the next wave. Kitesurfing is – as one devotee put it – “powered surfing”.

It is also a way of life. Kitesurfers are a new breed of itinerant wanderers seeking the perfect waves and winds. Surfcyprus instructor Chris Keyes, 32, has been teaching kitesurfing all over the world and has been kiting since the sport’s inception.

“I always see familiar faces [in different countries],” Keyes said. “It’s about living for the sport. Not many kitesurfers have homes and vehicles. They’ve just got their kites and they’re traveling the world. It’s a good way to travel.”

The island’s warm temperatures, attractiveness of the water, lack of crowds and, especially important for psychological reasons, lack of sharks make kitesurfing in Cyprus especially appealing.

“I was once in Australia at a place called Shark Bay,” a Limassol kitesurfer said. “The water was an amazing blue green and we could see manta rays below us. Then I tried something stupid and I dropped the kite. I didn’t know how to relaunch and I was pulled for maybe a half hour through the water. It wasn’t called Shark Bay for nothing. I was like bait for the sharks. But they left me alone.”

The first time I saw some kitesurfers for myself on a beach outside Limassol I made up my mind to try it, so I signed up for a five-day course with Pissouri Bay’s Surfcyprus – an internationally recognised school with full IKO (International Kiteboarding Organisation) approved school status.

I did not feel like getting hurled by my kite into a car parked by the shore or getting launched fifty feet over land so I thought some lessons by internationally accredited teachers would be a good idea.

I learned on the first day that wind is a god to be awed and feared. I spent my first two hours standing in a field learning to launch, pilot, and land a twin-skin foil kite. Foil kites have air vents that make the kite very efficient, but as they are not water-relaunchable (meaning if you crash your kite while surfing, you will not be able to relaunch it from the water). Before attempting to kitesurf, beginners most first understand wind dynamics and learn to pilot the kite through the “wind window,” where the wind can power the kite.

Surfcyprus instructor Jan Heijens, 26, did not have any instruction when he first started kitesurfing in Belgium, which put him at a great disadvantage. The shopkeeper where Heijens had bought his first 7-metre kite was apparently inept and dangerous, as he advised him that a safety system was not important.

“I didn’t know anything about the wind direction at the time,” Heijens said. “So I went out in 15-20 knots, which was already too much wind for a 7-metre kite with two lines. I thought you had to put it directly into the wind and bring it up. I did and flew off through the sand dunes for about 500 metres. I had no safety system to release the kite. My shoulder opened up as a result of dragging through the sand and there was already blood on my new tent when I packed it up.”

Thanks to proper instruction, my first experience did not resemble that of Heijen. Dodd carefully guided me through piloting and showed me how to steadily dive the kite in and out of the power region and how to stay in control while generating power.

After lunch I moved to the shore with Keyes, who introduced me to the four-line inflatable kite, the standard kitesurfing kite. He showed me how to inflate the kite, how to attach the lines to the proper places without crossing them over, how to untangle the lines when they become knotty messes, etc. I soon picked up the kitesurfing terminology and lingo: trailing edge, power up, depower, power adjustment strap, safety leash, chicken loop… Then I practiced much of what I did on the foil kite with this four-line kite, which has the added feature of powering and depowering.

Most who first see a kitesurfer skimming and slicing through the water, gripping a bar attached to a powered-up kite 40 feet up, assume kitesurfing requires muscle. But what the casual viewer often fails to see is the harness, which is how the kite tugs the surfer: the bar is only for piloting the kite.

Keyes said that musclemen are the most difficult people to teach as they believe kitesurfing demands strength. Instead of applying controlled measured pressure on the bar to pilot the kite, they try to muscle it, which is impossible, and they get creamed.
“Women are often very good kitesurfers,” Keyes said, “because they don’t exert much pressure on the bar.”

Beginner kitesurfers perpetually have their necks craned as their attention is riveted on their kites as they should be. But advanced kitesurfers develop a feel for the kite and rarely need to glance at it as they can feel by their motion and the tug on their harness where their kite is.

“That’s when you really learn to ride: when you shut your eyes,” Keyes said. “Same with jumping. I only look when I launch and land.”

On the second day I was in the water, practicing body-dragging (like kitesurfing without a board) in which you drive the kite up and down to generate power so that it pulls your body through the water. I body-dragged parallel to the coast but as I turned to come back to the shore, I lost control and crashed the kite into the water.

“I could see you were nervous by your kite,” Keyes told me as I walked out of the water onto the shore. “The kite reflects how you feel.”

We later used a boat to motor about a kilometer offshore so that I could get a feel for the power of the kite. I recall at one point being fully extended, watching as the kite swooped devilishly to and fro before me, the wind whistling and saltwater spraying around me as I skipped like a flat stone over the surface. In only minutes, if that, I had reached the shore. It was my first taste of wind power, an addictive taste, despite the massive wedgie that the force of the kite pulling up on my harness and swim shorts had given me.

On the third day there was no wind so we practiced technical aspects on shore like learning to wrap up the lines and pack up the tent from the water, relaunching the kite from the water, and even climbing onto a downed kite and using it as a makeshift sailboat to sail back to shore. It was not thrilling stuff but it was important.

Only in the last couple of weeks, a kitesurfer crashed near some cliffs around the bend. As he had never been taught to relaunch his kite from the water, he had to deflate his kite and climb onto a rocky outcrop in the sea in hopes that someone saw him round the bend without returning. He was lucky because another kitesurfer did see him round out of view without returning and told Dodd and Heijens, who were in the speedboat. They then motored around the bay to see if he was okay and found him crouched on a small rocky outcrop in the sea, clutching his deflated kite as waves crashed around him.

Winds were light on the fourth day, but enough for me to practice water relaunches, sailing, and packing up the kite from the water. The greatest challenge was contending with tangled lines. An advanced kitesurfer needs only five or ten minutes from unpacking the tent to kitesurfing, and even less to pack up, but for the beginner, who is constantly fumbling and dumping the kite, tangles are a common and, for me at least, infuriating occurrence.

But on the fifth and final day the winds were back. This was my chance to try to get up and going on a board. Dodd took me out in the boat and I jumped into the water and hooked the kite bar on my harness. But along the way my lines had crossed, resulting in an ugly tangle. After an unsuccessful 20 minutes of trying to untangle them, we returned to shore where we untangled the mess. Others were waiting to go out in the boat so I just tried to practice getting up on the board by body dragging out away from shore with the board tucked under my right arm.

The goal, once I was about three times as far from the shore as the length of my lines were, was to put the kite into the neutral position, sit in the water with my back to the wind, and slip my feet in the board straps. Then I was to pull down on the right end of the bar so that the kite would dip, power up, and pull me forward as I stood up on the board and continued to dip the kite up and down.

At first it was hard enough just for me to get my feet in the straps. Every time my attention was off the kite, it would swing out of the neutral position and start pulling me to one side, forcing me to return my attention to stabilising it. Or I might get my feet in the straps, but I would somehow get turned around so that my back was no longer in the wind.

Finally I got in position with my feet in the straps and I dipped the kite down. The kite pulled on my harness and as the harness pulled on me, the board went out from under me and I went down in an ungainly spill. This went on for 30 minutes. Every time the wind would blow me too close to the shore or too close to the area where most of the kitesurfers were concentrated, I would get out of the water and then walk horizontally along the shore back to my starting point. Exhausting.

My worst spill resulted from my own poor judgment. The wind had blown me in close to shore, but instead of getting out there and walking back down the beach as I should have done, I decided to try to get up one more time. I dipped the kite down hard, and next thing I knew, I had lost control and was being yanked towards the shore. As I went dragging along the pebbles, I forgot about the kite, a bad mistake, because it now veered down towards the inflated kite of another beginner. He popped his safety release when he saw my kite careening towards his, and his kite depowered and collapsed into some bushes. Neither of us was hurt and the kites were fine but I felt like an ass. I sheepishly apologised and from then on dutifully returned to shore whenever I found myself too close to land.

It was on my last attempt of the day, when the winds were subsiding and other kitesurfers were packing up onshore, that I had some success. It was my last hoorah. Keyes had given me a good piece of advice before this final try, and it was apparently the right advice. The kite pulled me and I stepped up to my feet and… suddenly I was kitesurfing, or at least doing something that had an unseemly, swerving, gawky semblance to it.

I finally lost the little control that I had and fell. But I was soon on my feet again. There was no grace in my motion; my kite was swerving around schizophrenically and I was more ploughing through the water than surfing on it, but it was still, in the words of another kitesurfer, “absolutely amazing”. Jesus may have walked on water, but here I was surfing on it. And with a little more practice, I might even be flying.

For kitesurfing lessons and the full range of IKO approved courses in Cyprus by accredited IKO instructors call Surfcyprus on 25 827020 or 99 755536. Or email them at: alex@surfcyprus.com