Posts Tagged ‘Dakhla’

Doing it in Dakhla Again!

Wednesday, July 27th, 2011

We have made it !!

Largely due to the fact that we have no plans and we did not want to panic loved ones, very little regarding this episode of ‘Bray boys do Dakhla (Part 2)’ has been divulged to the public…… until now!

Last time we packed everything including the kitchen sink; we were well prepared and ready for every eventuality! This time not so much. In fact until about 15 minutes ago we had absolutely no idea where we were going to sleep this evening. We have not bought a tent (read wedding marquee), neither Jack nor I have any money and to make matters worse, have absolutely no access to transport, as we have just learnt that taxis are not authorised to cross the road block separating us from the windsurfing spot.

The shananagans started early on Friday morning with a last minute trip to Bray to pick up some final bits and pieces that I forgot. Fortunately I had the dependable Sawbridge boys to pack the trailer up before ‘Mr Sawbs’ drove us to Gatwick- simples! This time not so much. Once the trailer was fully loaded and connected to the car we discovered that the left indicator on the trailer was not working. Screwdriver in hand, dependable Jack attended to the problem whilst the rest of us said our final goodbyes. Unfortunately, ‘less-dependable’ Jack was not very careful, and by the time he had rewired the trailer, the right indicator worked when we applied the brakes, and the brakelights came on when we indicated left. By this stage we were running a little late and unreliable Jack was flustered and, in his haste, ripped trailer cable out of the car leaving the connector in the back of the car and a handful of exposed wires! Quick change of cars and we were off.

Somehow we managed to check in with 103kg of windsurfing kit without out paying extra money. Sadly that was the end of our luck, our flight to Casablanca was delayed by 3 hours. Even after being repeatedly reassured that we would not miss our connecting flight- we did! So we spent the night on the streets in Casablanca sharing cover with all sorts of unsavoury characters. Not really we were put up in a lovely hotel where I had my first ever Moroccan shower.

Now we are just about to have dinner with Colin and Freya (a lovely ex-pat couple who have bent over backwards to sort us out). This evening we are checked into a hotel and tomorrow we plan on setting up a Moroccan tent that we have just finished sewing together. This time we are trying out a new spot a little closer to Dakhla town.

Forecast looks decent and tides are good so we should have some good sessions to come.

PS flights were cheapish and easyish so if you fancy joining us for a week or two get in touch with Bray for more details.

Photos to follow.

Contributed by: Ricky

 

Return from Daklha last instalment

Friday, October 29th, 2010

Sorry for the incredible lateness of this blog entry.  We’ve been back from Dakhla for a while now. The end of the trip was awesome!

We had incredible conditions for the last couple of weeks in Dakhla and surprise surprise the other two managed to stay fit for all of it. I hope that you have all seen the video of our successes and wipeouts a little further down the blog!

The drive back was significantly less fun than the drive down. De rigging the marquee and packing up was all very depressing. We had a great deal of help for Isa, one of the beach guardians.The drive to Marakesh went pretty well, the Ricky Gervais podcasts again keeping us very amused. Once we reached Marakesh Ricky’s map reading skills failed us (standard) and we found ourselves totally lost. Marakesh it turns out is the most poorly signposted city in the world. After 4 hours of being lost we eventually found a sign for the airport, which as it turns out, was only 50m from the entrance to the airport. We dropped Ricky off which was a mega bummer and Tom and I continued on to Moulay, another 4hours down the road. This meant that Tom and I had been in the car for getting on 30hours when we arrived. This particular leg of the journey was in 47 degree heat and may I just remind you that our air conditioning had not worked from day one.

When we arrived in Moulay there was no wind, I think we would have been far too knackered anyway. The next day we had some 4.2 to 4.7 type conditions and some nice ramps for jumping. Tom sailed pretty well and got involved with some forwards. I was a being a bit of a wimp and concentrated on back loops. I made some progress though; sometimes over rotating, sometimes under rotating. Tom gave me a load of flack over lunch about not doing any forwards. Unfortunately we were both a little underpowered after lunch and nothing much really happened.

Day two was windier and I made up for being a wuss the day before and did a fair few forwards whilst continuing my assault on back loops. Boujmaa was out and was doing loads of doubles and huge back loops. Tom continues the experimentation that I started in Daklha with hooked in forwards. We can again conclusively conclude that they don’t work (or you have to be insanely skilled). Tom because he is the most unlucky man alive (he must have done many evil things in a past life) perforated his ear drum. This meant that he had to stay off the water for two weeks.

The third day there was less wind but there was a proper swell coming in. I went out on my 4.7 and there were some big logo high waves coming in and peeling nicely. There were only a few of us out so there were loads of waves to catch. It was my first day of proper wave riding and I really enjoyed it but I think that day two was the most fun because of the awesome jumping. We had a BBQ in the evening which would rather sculpt the remainder of our trip.

We left the next day because the wind was dying and headed for Ceuta. About halfway there I started to feel pretty ropey. Tom managed to get another speeding fine (typical) after we had run out of dirhams. We managed to bribe the police man with £10 English pounds which we assured him was worth 400dirhams (actually worth 120). We did our usual trick of missing our ferry by 1minute and having to wait for the next one. We slept in a service station near Malaga. This was not the grand return to Spain we had anticipated. This was because we were too late and by now I was pretty ill. From about week one in Dakhla we had been dreaming of the 16ounze steak we were going to get on our return to Spain. A soggy, stale sandwich from a late night petrol station was not quite the stuff of our dreams. Because I was so ill Tom had to do a heroic stint behind the wheel though Spain and France. The drive went well except for in Madrid and we missed a ferry in Bologne by 5 minutes. We made it back to Windsor in the middle of the night. And the next day we were straight down to Bray Lake to buy more Windsurfing gear and for our first pint of beer in nearly three months and the Fifield.

All in all an awesome trip we never stopped loving the windsurfing so bring on next year!

Contributed by: Jack

From blog to video – Boys from Dakhla

Tuesday, September 21st, 2010

If you’ve been wondering just what happened to Jack, Ricky and Tom whilst on their adventure in Dakhla and just how much they enjoyed, improved, wiped out and simply had an awesome trip, you can see for yourself on their very own video!

Brilliant stuff!

Contributed by: Jack, Tom and Ricky

In the face!

Monday, August 16th, 2010

Apologies for the lack of news, trips into town have been few and far between normally involving some sort of wild goose chase like fixing the generator – again! I have spent the last 6 days of the water after wiping out during a punetta attempt – smashing my face on the boom and earning myself a two hour visit to the hospital for stitches. The large posse of doctors were great if a little overly banterful and a little stingy on the anesthetic. Promises of “No more pain Mister Tom” were an outright lie. I am personally blaming Jack for this as it was his idea to try switch on one of the windiest days we’ve had so far. Opinions vary on when I’m allowed back on the water but I’m currently going stir crazy and may try windsurfing tomorrow. Jack and Ricky have plans for some kind of Hanibal Lecter mask, made from old wetsuit accessories and Ding. I think they are more concerned with making me look like a prat than protecting my stitches.

Last weekend we had a little disagreement with the Dakhla attitude kite center over the position of our tent. They were running a beach safety day for the local kids, our tent stood proud in the middle of the beach with Bray Lake stickers in full view so expect some orders to Western Sahara. Jack was not such a pushover this time and managed to argue our way out of moving the tent which was a massive relief.

The wind conditions have been 50/50 over the last week with it either blowing not at all or nuking everyone on the water. There seems to be a direct correlation between our dental hygiene and the quantity of time out on the water. Jack – who is fastidious about brushing his teeth spends as much time out as possible, Ricky on the other hand has brushed his teeth, once, twice, YES, three times, your talking bollocks! My teeth brushing isn’t the best but I do have an excuse for not being on the water although I have earned the nick name of “rest-day Gold”.

The wind wasn’t about this morning but it should be back this afternoon. The low tide is in the morning so Jack has been sailing in the chop in the afternoons and been doing some huge flakkas. When it is blowing full 3.7 it can be pretty gnarly out there. Ricky hurt his elbow yesterday but fingers crossed it is not too serious.

Looking forward to good tides and wind this week.

Thanks for reading

Contributed by: Tom

The Dakhla adventure continues

Friday, July 16th, 2010

Hi all, sorry for the lack of news but the laptop broke last week which makes blogging a little tricky.  We have resorted to writing the blog in the internet cafe which is at present about 45 degrees, smells of sewage and we are surrounded by people watching suspect video footage. It has been an eventful few days, the generator broke then was fixed by Jack and a team of locals, only to cause a power surge which, since the Morrocans pulled apart our surge protector to try to get it working again, we had no protection against surges. Subsequently we managed to fry the laptop transformer box.  Fortunately we have been pointed in the right direction for a replacement and are hopeful we can get everything fixed.

As far as windsurfing goes it has been an unsuccessful couple of days…the tides have meant that the freestyle spot is not working at the moment.

On Friday myself and Ricky arrived back at the beach late in the evening due to the slow slog back, Ricky had also managed to put a large hole in the bottom of his foot during a impressive catapult on the sandbar!

On Sunday we tried a wave spot down the road.  Whilst unpacking the car Tom’s board decided to blow across the car park, making a nice new hole to join the others! Jack and Ricky bobbed out, both coming in again after ten minutes due to a complete lack of wind, Ricky’s fin having also been a victim of a large rock beneath the water line.  Since then we have had no wind and have slowly been driven crazy by our flapping marquee!

Windguru is predicting a good week but we have learnt from experience that any prediction made by them is completely worthless so fingers crossed for tomorrow.  In preparation for the especially windy day tomorrow we have brought some camel for tonight – our first bit of real meat since the trip began.

More soon!

Contributed by: Tom