Start of the KTA competition in Boracay (Philippines)

Today's been the third day of the competition and the first one that they had to cancel it because of the wind. Skippers meeting at 8am but no sing of wind. A couple of hours latter picked up a little bit so they continued with the men freestyle, but couldn`t finish it.
On Wednesday, after the registration, they started with the men freestyele. In the evening we had the Opening party in Tanawin, with some cocktails and a marvellous panoramic view of Boracay.

On the second day of the competition, we kept going with freestyle. This time was my turn in freestyle. In semi-finals, unfortunately I sent a powerful s-bend (too close to the sand) and althought I landed in the water, there is just 5 or 6 metres of sand and due to the strong wind my poor little kite landed on some palm trees above the judge tower. Believe it or not, It didn't break at all!! My boyfriend was waiting with my 6m on the air, so he just pass it to me and I could keep going with the heat, but I was too underpowered and coulnd't do any tricks. So this is how I lost my heat.
I passed the next round on the second chance, so that leaded me to the heat to get 2nd or 3rd place. I'm happy with my performance there: my first trick was a nice railey to blind, followed by the S-bend you can see in the picture. But the judges decided that an F-16 counts more than a railey to blind¿? So here ended my freestyle competition with a third place.

In the evening they brought us to a really nice restaurant in front of the beach, for dinner with the governers of Philippines, with sea views and magnificent food!! We got there performing a funny "comparsa" all riders with the flag of their country.
I'm really excited to see what have they prepared for us tonight!!

KTA Vietnam

Congrats KTA for the amazing organiztion event. That was the third Kiteboard Tour Asia stop and one of the best I've been to! A total of 70 riders toke part in the competition in the vietnamise spot of Mui Ne,coming from 18 different countries.
We had nice wind 3 out of 4 days, and light but enough wind for course racing on the last day.
Day one started in the afternoon after registration, with a short two laps racing. Due to the many riders registered, men course racing was divided into 2 groups, so they had to do 4 racings to have one single result. It was easier for us girls, as we were 12 we went all in the same race.
I did a mistake when I was heading the first lap that put me back to the 4th place, but fortunately I managed to finish on the second place at last.
The following two days priority was freestyle. They used the "Second Chance" method to get simple and double results, and I have to say that I really liked it. I think is the most fair system I've seen by now. You have to loose twice to be out.
I didn't start well my freestyle comp. I lost my heat against the vietnamise rider Julia. We performed quite similar heats but I have to say she did better.
On my second heat I ride against Ali from Australia (second in the KTA ranking). I beat her with a powerful unhook kiteloop almost at the end. My last heat was against the leader of the freestyle tour Kathrin B. A mistake on the timing made us repeat our heat (as it was the women final it was supposed to be a 10 min. heat instead of a 7 min. heat). Althought I lost, I was happy about my performance 'cos it wasn't easy at all performing unkhook stuff and surfpasses with the strong wind and supper choppy conditions.
On the third day, after the double elimination of freestyle was completed, we did the "Big Air" competition. You always get great fun with strong winds!
On Sunday, last day of competition, the wind was very light, so at 14h when it seemed to rise a little bit, another course racing was heald. This time I knew I could do any mistakes. My start, surpriseling for me, was really good! but after missing a few turns on the board, Kathrin was heading the race. It was just until the last tag that I couldn't reach her and I won almost on the finish line.
So my final results were:
1st in Course Racing
2nd in Freestyle
Now I'm really excited about going to Philippines. I've heard it is an amazing spot and I can wait to see all the nice riders I met in Vietnam!

Getting to Vietnam

I just left Barcelona on Saturday 23rd January but I had to take a few planes and spend a couple of nights at airports before I reached Vietnam. I flew from barcelona airport to Gatwich (London). . I spent my first night there as the connection flight wasn't until the following morning. I feel super lucky I can travel with my boyfriend David, so I don't spend the unfinishable hours alone in airports.
We got up and went straight to the Qatar Airways desk to do our check-in. And what happend there??? We had 11kg of extra bagagge and they wanted us to pay the scary amount of 560 English Pounds!!!!!! (only 20kg allowed per person). As a kitesurfer, you will know that it is almost impossible to carry only 20kg in gear when you're heading to a competition and your plans are to travel for at least 2 months!! Anyway, don´t ask me how, but we manage not to pay a single penny (thanks Sir from Qatar A.), probably they saw our faces went white and that we really couldn´t afford that.
We got to Doha (Qatar) that same night. We had a 13 hours transfer, so there it came our second night in the airport. We had a dinner budget from the company and there was also free internet in there.
On the third day of travel we got to Saigon (Ho Chi Mi -Vietnam). We decided to spend one night there as we really needed a shower and we still had 4 or 5 hours driving to our final destination.
Saigon is a kaotic city (as any other big asiatic city, I guess), with as many motorbikes as cars, and driving crazy and "pitant" every single second.
We find a nice clean and cheap backpackers to stay that night. The lady from the hostel booked us bus for the following day that took us to Mui Ne. We had a nice surprise to see that we were gonna spend the next 5 hours in a nice, confortable bus ;). And finally, four days after, we got to Mui Ne!!
One day to settle down and the KTA contest starts!!