We spent 7 days on Raratonga and 6 on a beautiful island called Aitutaki. The main reason for going was to kitesurf. 6 of us had kiting gear (Nita and Taj are not into it yet). Scotty had done some research and told us that it should be great for kiting and the wind should be up. Unfortunately this wasn't so. After a few days of no wind on Raratonga we started going a bit stir crazy.
We went snorkeling, climbed up the hardest tracks I've ever been on and nearly got lost. It was very steep and if there wasn't any markers you never would've known there was a track there. Joel and Scotty did it waring thongs! My nike sandals were broken afterwards. Only Joel made it to the highest peak with Scotty getting to within 30m of the summit. I got to about 300m and Kath and Fiona turned back about 500m from the top. Lee took Taj & Nita back only after about a kilometer as the mossies and track looked bad.
The wind was teasing us. Only a couple of knots short of being able to kite. Joel eventually had had enough after cracking open coconuts and drinking beer and sitting on the beach looking at the ocean. On the 5th day he grabbed his kite and set up. I told him he was mad. He planned on launching from the reef near our beach house. There was just enough wind to get going and off he went. He did a few runs and managed to tack back to where he left. He scraped his board on the reef as he came back in and was lucky to get away with it, but he got his fix. Unfortunately for Joel this was his only real kite session for the whole trip.
Taj after a big session.
Then it was on to Aitutaki. Poor little Taj (18 months old) couldn't pop his ears on the small plane (no pressurised cabin). He screamed and cried the whole 50 mins.
Aitutaki is one of the most beautiful islands I've ever seen. A massive lagoon with several small islands close to the reef. So after we'd found our accomodation and been attacked by millions of mosquitos I went and hired a moped as there was still no wind.
The next day still had no wind. So on day four at Aitutaki after lots of drinking, Kayaking to a small island, exploring the island on the moped and opening even more coconuts, Joel gave up. He decided to head back to Raratonga and hopefully find more wind there. That night as Joel was getting on the plane the wind picked up! Poor Joel. He found no wind on Raratonga and lost his keys to a moped. He did go skinny dipping with some Scandinavian girls though apparently.
The rest us of thanked the wind gods and went out on a boat to an awesome sand island which we kited off and had lunch on. We also went fishing on some reefs and we caught some good snapper which we ate for dinner. Yum! The next day we went back there on a boat and kited all afternoon. The last two days made the whole trip worth it.
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