“Um, Texas? Why are you going there?” This was a common politely repeated refrain from folks when they found out our new plan. The steady stream of anti-abortion legislative changes and other conservative laws and high covid hospitalization rates comparative to other states at the time seemed to be regularly making international news headlines in BC.
Cruising friends from Texas who were planning another season in French Polynesia were incredulous. “The water is brown there….you know that right? It’s nothing like the crystal blue waters of French Polynesia.” Um….yes. So why were we going to Texas anyway?
Corpus Christie – North Padre Island, Texas
It turns out that Corpus is windy 300 days of the year. And it has always been a known destination for wind sport enthusiasts in North America. Before cruising, we’d almost made a trip to South Padre Island to learn to kitesurf– a spot known for flat shallow water, perfect for learning. So Corpus and North and South Padre Island had always been on our radar. Well, at least Gavin’s radar.
We were also looking for somewhere to ease back to land life that was warm in winter, windy and fairly inexpensive, with access to good shipping and easy shopping. For us, this turned out to be Texas!
We found a fantastic furnished condo 150 m from a long beautiful beach that had many luxuries that we’d not had for the last few years of boatlife: kingsize beds, a large soaker tub, and fast inexpensive internet. Also important was the access to online and easy shipping and regular wind and kitespots.
Back to the land of easy shipping…. Sourcing Formula Race Kite Equipment
And why was shipping important? Over our time on board Slingshot Nathan had gotten really interested in kite foiling and wanted to get into foil racing, a new Olympic sport to debut in the 2024 Paris Olympics. This meant we needed to source Formula Kite equipment – race foils and a quiver of foil race kites. As this is a niche sport, the equipment is not easily available at your neighbourhood kite shop. There are only a few specific brands and it takes time for them to be made and shipped – even before covid induced supply chain issues arose.
As soon we had a contract to sell the boat in French Polynesia, Gavin began sourcing and ordering the foils and kites. We found a quiver of ‘Gin’ kites at CaptainKirks USA in Long Beach, California (thank you Sabrina!) and Luca in Italy was making two brand new Chewbanga carbon foils for us. Due to our boards getting lost for a period of time by DHL (3 weeks) it wasn’t until Christmas Day, that Gavin and Nate finally got out on their new Formula Kite equipment – brand new foil kites and foils. Wow! From start to finish it took about 6 months to finally have all the equipment in our hands!
We ultimately planned to go to La Ventana, Mexico, a kitesurfing mecca known for consistent wind and warm temperatures during winter in the northern hemisphere. But we did not want to deal with shipping challenges in Mexico. We’d had enough of that in French Polynesia.
So those are the reasons why we ended up in Corpus for the fall and early winter: nice reasonably priced accommodation near kite spots, warm(ish) during winter months, windy 300 days a year, and good easy shipping… it worked out pretty well!
We had originally toyed with the idea of going to Spain and Portugal for the winter instead. In truth this was my preferred destination. But then on closer inspection, Brexit changes had made visa issues more challenging, and that we would have needed to exit the Schengen area for three months of the time as we did not plan to pursue the more lengthy process of becoming residents. And it turns out it’s still pretty cool in Spain and Portugal in the winter. So back to the Texas plan it was. Happily it was actually pretty fun.
Corpus – North Padre Island Life: school, kite, exercise, cook delicious food, repeat!
So what did we do in Corpus? We fell into a routine of home schooling, cooking delicious food, going to the fantastic well stocked library, long walks on the beach and of course kiting and foiling where ever the wind forecast aligned.
With huge TV screens in every room in our apartment and unlimited fast internet, we ended up watching nightly news with Halle Jackson and getting aquainted with the daily news feed in the US. This could be a blog post all on its own! We had access to netflix, HBO, sports streaming and of course youtube so we consumed more media than we had in a very long time.
After a week or two of being slack and indulgent we tightened up our rules and had small daily screen allowances for the kids during the week, with more time allowed on evenings on the weekend. It made me reminiscent of the blissful disconnected times during our trip when we were all present, devouring books and generally more present.
We met a nice group of kiters in Corpus. They were locals who congregated at the local kite spots. They were keen, helpful and supportive and we got to know a few of them. It just wasn’t quite like the family kite scene that we’d been used to in French Polynesia. Part of this was because it was winter while we were there, so the water was cooler and the north wind was very strong when the fronts passed over. So this meant only the intrepid kiters were regularly out there.
Christmas in Texas, South Padre fun, then on to Mexico.
We enjoyed Christmas and New Years in Corpus, having fun doing Christmas crafts and decorating a tiny tree Julia and I found at Target. Some friends we met in French Polynesia rented a house in South Padre Island for December so we had fun exchanging visits with them.
We’d chosen to go to the lesser known North Padre due to wanting to have access to deeper in-water foiling locations as opposed to South Padre where the lagoon is not deep enough to accomodate our 1metre long towers. We did enjoy twin tipping in South Padre though! It is a perfect location for learning and Jules had two fun days of kiting there while Nathan entertained us with his twin tipping tricks.
Before we knew it, it was nearing the end of January and it was time to head to our next destination – La Ventana! But how would we get there….cut through northern Mexico and take the ferry? OR should we go the long way around…
