Another Windsurfing Trip to Caliraya

Usually, when we go windsurfing at Caliraya Lake, we'd find a bunch of windsurfers and kiteboarders / kitesurfers milling about and camping in Surf Kamp with their trailer campers and cars. Most of them are the same people I've worked with during the 2008 FunBoard Cup in Boracay although I rarely interact with them when I go there. I'm the loner type if you must know and I rarely interact with people unless they talk to me first. 

We had the lake all to ourselves! 

So anyway, this particular weekend that we went to Surf Kamp, my husband and I were surprised to see that no one was around. The caretaker of the property actually told us that  the windsurfers are now camping somewhere else. This new campsite doesn't have a name, but it's just right across Surf Camp's Lakeside. Going by car, we'd have to exit Surf Camp and turn left. We followed the road until we saw another narrow road on our left where there is a big house with red roof. There's a small parking area there but we'd still have to ride a barge to cross the lake until we reach this new campsite allegedly owned by Michael Palacios according to the person we came across with while parking in the second location. The wind and kitesurfers now go here since they're like an exclusive club and they like to come together every weekend.


I tried calling my windsurfing instructor, Nonie (0919-4999634), since we didn't know how to reach this other campsite from the parking area. Apparently, there's an entrance fee of Php300 per person (as opposed to Surf Kamp's Php75.00) plus parking fee and probably also boat fee. Adding everything (including Php1,000 for 3 hours of windsurfing lessons)  would cost us too much just to be able to windsurf for a few hours so Peter and I decided to just go back to Surf Kamp, park there and windsurf from there. 

There are better and bigger parking spaces in Surf Kamp.

Nonie  told us that people can still camp in Surf Camp. Altho he suggested that we try a different campsite next time since the management  there tends to be greedy and would take a cut from their earnings. Anyway, all these camping sites (there's a third one which we will visit next time) share the same lake. So for this particular trip, we just stayed in Surf Kamp, used their facilities and windsurfed and kayaked the afternoon away. 

I had a good time windsurfing downwind. The wind conditions were good and I was able to go far. However, I still had a hard time going upwind. The next time I come for lessons, Nonie will teach me how to better read wind conditions so I can position my sail better and go faster, hopefully.

Here's a little vocabulary about the terms:

UPWIND - Where the wind is coming from. So if you windsurf upwind, it's like you're going against the current.

DOWNWIND - Where the wind is going. So when windsurfing this way, you go where the wind goes. It's usually easier. 

Peter, on the other hand, doesn't like windsurfing much. So he kayaked all afternoon instead and tried to take pictures of me while in the middle of the lake. The Kayak comes free since Nonie uses this to come pick me up whenever I'd get stranded at the far end of the lake and couldn't catch wind. And since I seldom get stranded these days (nuks!), Peter was able to use the kayak for himself. ^_^

Til our next windsurfing trip! (^_^)


For more photos, please click here:

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