Aruba – Film session part 2

After 5 weeks of travelling in Australia we went straight to film in Aruba.
This time we had a bigger film crew. Julian, Johannes and the legend Dasher.
Kiri and Taty came over from Bonaire and together with a couple of the locals we re-explored al lot of the spots Aruba has to offer.
I don’t know what’s going on with the weather system but I can’t complain.
Aruba delivered top notch conditions every single day for the two weeks we were there. The best treat of all was when massive waves rolled in at Westpoint for three days. For the first time in a while there was a huge get together of windsurfers shredding waves in Aruba!

Slight embarrassing moment right on the first day. Prior to our trip to Aruba I had bragged about non stop sunshine, 30degrees and 25+ knots everyday.
On our first morning there I decided to take the filmcrew up our famous mountain (100m) “Haystack” to film the sunrise. Would you believe that the moment we got up there the clouds moved in, the temperature dropped, rain started pouring and the wind started howling!? Whyyy!?
Thankfully I didn’t have to take all my bragging back.
By the afternoon the sun was back and stayed with us for the rest of our trip.

We flew over Taty and Kiri because I’ve always looked up to them –and a couple more of Bonairians- since I started sailing. They represent the sport with a smile on and off the water and have contributed so much to the development of freestyle windsurfing. I’m really happy they came over. If you thought water couldn’t catch fire, you should have seen them. They ripped so hard, smoke was coming off of the water 😉 We sailed at barcadera, Spaans Lagoen, Fishermen’s huts and Westpoint. Then we also had my brother Quincy and some of the local kids like Ethan Westera, Nik & Mack van den eerenbeemt, Mark Tjon etc. joining in on the fun as well.

The most fun and memorable moments of the trip were when we were a huge group sailing at westpoint. I have never been to that spot in my entire windsurfing career. Someone told me once when I was young that there were sharks there. Because of that I’ve never been.
But after sailing places like Australia and Cape Town notorious for their sharky waters, I decided that I could now handle Westpoint as well.
Anyway I found out I needed to take more care for the rocks then worry about sharks. I had the best guide I could get. Jeroen Westrate, Aruba’s windsurfing legend.
After day one I was hooked. It was like sailing Ho’okipa but at least you could catch any wave you wanted. After the first day more people found out and by day three there was a mix of the younger generation and the older generation all on the water. From the water we could see a bunch of cars stopping just to watch the action. Awesome !! Back on the beach we would hear stories from the experienced westpoint riders. It was really special to share these sessions together.

Really need to thank everybody that made their boats available so we could film!
Appie & Peter Westera, Jp vd Eerembeemt & Gerardo de Veer

Finally after two weeks it was time to wrap it up.
I’m off to maui for the yearly photoshoot of Neilpryde and Starboard.
It’ s been about four years since I’ve taken part. So I am grateful I have the time to go there again!