MAUI

Kiteboarding off Kanaha Beach
Access and Resources


THE BIG ISLAND

Mountain biking Mud Lane
Access and Resources

OAHU

Canoe sailing off Waikiki
Access and Resources


KAUAI

Soul surfing Hanalei Bay
Access and Resources

The New Fusion

Where Kite Flying and Wakeboarding Collide

Giving in to the addiction: the power zone off Maui

TAKE TWO FAVORITE PASTIMES of the ancient Hawaiians—surfing and kite flying. Toss them into the Cuisinart of new-sport inspiration, press the frappé button, and out pours kiteboarding. Barely five years old, this nascent sport has quickly come to the attention of all self-respecting fun hogs. Holding on to what looks like an oversize stunt kite with a trapeze-style bar, a kiteboarder harnesses the power of the wind, riding atop a stubby windsurfing-style board. It’s been described as wakeboarding with a twist—the twist being that you’re both the rider and the boat driver, the wind serving as your 250-horsepower outboard. My surfboard shaper on Oahu warned me: “Be careful…it’s more addictive than heroin.”


Overcome by temptation, I head to the center of the kiteboarding universe: Kanaha Beach Park, aka Kite Beach, a shaded little cove on the north shore of Maui. I’m here to take a lesson from Martin Kirk, owner of the Kiteboarding School of Maui, which, at three years old, is a pioneer in promoting the sport. Like so many of his kama’aina (long-time local) brethren, 15-year resident Martin came to Maui to satiate his water-sports jones—and never left. With sun-baked freckles, strawberry locks, and an East Carolinian pork-barbecue heritage, Martin didn’t strike me as a local’s local. But I found that more than wind powers him. He possesses an attribute the Hawaiians call kokua aku, a penchant for “giving back” to his community, whether organizing beach cleanups, volunteering as a Big Brother, or serving as kiteboarding’s ambassador.
The day of my lesson, the 18-knot trade breeze is ideal for laying out power-jibe rooster tails and hucking enormous air with slow-motion rail grabs. I, however, succeed with a flailing “body drag” wake, which is sliced and diced by a who’s who of hard-cores, pros, and even world champions. I clutch the so-called control bar, but it’s not at all clear who’s controlling what as I am dragged out to sea by the twitchy, bumblebee-colored kite, a 4.2-square-meter Cabrinha. If my motions aren’t smooth it yanks me skyward like a marionette being jerked off the stage. Martin encourages me in a calming voice: “Bring your kite to neutral…now hook into your harness…now dive your kite toward the water…PULL UP! Easy now, you can add and subtract thrust by diving and climbing.”


I safely make it to the culmination of our four-hour lesson, and now is my chance to put it all together—alone. Kite launched, Martin spots me at shore’s edge—adding ballast lest I get lifted prematurely. He repeats the checklist I must go through when I’m out on the water. “Kite to neutral…hook in…reach back for your board…slip into the footstraps.” All systems go—I dive my kite through that hallowed place known as the Power Zone, the downwind sweet spot about 45 degrees above the horizon where the wind’s full force hits the kite. Skipping out to sea, this time on my feet, I lean back on my heel-side rail and let the kite do the work. I’ve got it, and for now, my only peril is addiction.

Maui: Access and Resources

A bamboo forest near Wailua Falls, Maui

AT FIRST GLANCE, Maui, the second-most-visited island after Oahu, seems like a pie sliced in three: resort-complex Maui, golf-course Maui, and condo Maui. But there are plenty more pieces to go around—the grassy ranch land and volcanic heights of upcountry Haleakala, the rainforest splendor of the Hana side, and the north shore’s international windsurfing scene. Bon appe’tit!

WHERE TO STAY: The Hotel Hana-Maui on rocky Hana Bay has 66 luxury rooms and suites, many in plantation-style bungalows. Doubles, $275; 800-321-4262, . For the old upcountry Hawaii feel, stay at the Old Wailuku Inn at Ulupono, close to rainforest hiking and the famed Iao Needle rock spire. Doubles start at $120; 800-305-4899, .

WHERE TO INDULGE: In the upcountry hub of Makawao, head to Casanova Italian Restaurant and Bar for calzones and live blues; 808-572-0220. Brag about the big front loop you busted at Ho’okipa over fresh sushi at Jacque’s North Shore Restaurant and Bar in Paia, a hangout for the wind-chaser crowd; 808-579-8844. Or try the Old Lahaina Luau, with “broke da mouth” (delicious) Hawaiian fare and a traditional hula performance. $75 per seat; 800-248-5828, .

WHERE TO…
KITEBOARD: The Kiteboarding School of Maui’s beginner lesson costs $240; 808-873-0015, .

SEA KAYAK: Paddle into an isolated marine reserve at lava-lined La Perouse Bay, a playground of green sea turtles and whales, with South Pacific Kayaks & Outfitters. $89; 800-776-2326, .

SCUBA DIVE: Jump from a catamaran into a sheltered reef preserve off the islet of Molokini with Trilogy Excursions. From $150; 888-225-6284, .

WINDSURF: Harness the mellow morning winds off Kanaha Beach with Maui Sports Unlimited. From $50 per hour; 808-575-2266, .

SURF: Take a lesson “wherever the waves are going off,” with former pro Buzzy Kerbox. $65; 808-573-5728, .

HIKE: Follow the Sliding Sands trail into Haleakala Crater, then climb back up to the rim on the connecting Halemauu Switchback trail (11 miles total). 808-572-4400, . On the Hana side, hike Wai’anapanapa State Park’s three-mile Piilani Trail and follow coastal lava flows past the stone remains of a heiau (temple). 808-587-0062, .

MOUNTAIN BIKE: Rent a ride from Island Biker in Kahului and pedal the Mamane Trail, a five-mile singletrack loop through Polipoli State Park on the western slope of the Haleakala volcano. $29 per day; 808-877-7744, .

This Mud’s for You

The Joys of Biking on the Wild Side

I HAD BEEN WARNED. “It’s gonna be wet out there!” Grant Mitchell announced at least four times during the five-minute van ride from the upcountry town of Waimea to the Mud Lane turnoff. After nine years at the helm of Mauna Kea Mountain Bikes, Mitchell had ridden the Big Island’s most technical singletrack countless times and could afford the upbeat tone. But where I live in the parched and dusty Southwest, mud is an exotic novelty. I had come with him to reacquaint myself with mud’s unlikely charms—the way it splatters off your tires and shellacs every inch of skin and clothing and bike, and brings a sense of grimy triumph to each precarious pedal stroke—and to meditate on one of mountain biking’s most sacred mantras: Mud makes you cool.


Tucked into a dense swath of rainforest at 2,500 feet, high on the flanks of the lush Kohala Mountains and across a broad saddle from 13,796-foot Mauna Kea, Mud Lane exists in its own biosphere of mist and rain. The day of our ride, Mud Lane did not disappoint. It had been raining steadily all morning, and the trail was a veritable Slip ‘n’ Slide of muck and mud. After only a few minutes skittering down a washed-out jeep track—over a minefield of branches, rocks, and puddles—the mire was flying and our disc brakes were squealing. By the time we forked onto the three-mile singletrack loop, we were utterly, satisfactorily filthy. Threading our way through Norfolk Island pines and guava, koa, and waiwi trees, we tackled a thrilling series of tight roller-coaster turns, rain-slicked roots, low-slung branches, and gullies thick with mud. Had I not been so intent on staying upright, I would have whooped with delight.
If I was a little rusty in the mud, Mitchell was an old hand. Six feet tall with burly quads and forearms, he powered along as though he’d custom-ordered every rock, drop, and root on Mud Lane. Which, in fact, he had. “I helped build this trail,” he informed me as we stopped to admire a particularly impressive drop-off that one of us had just ridden flawlessly. Mitchell, 40, moved to Hilo from southern California in the 1970s, got into mountain biking, and teamed up with surfboard innovator and notorious Big Island eccentric Gordon Clark and other locals to help cut Mud Lane in ’86. These days, Mitchell leads rides across the Big Island’s wildly varied terrain and works a handful of jobs to stay ahead on a Hawaii not yet overrun with tourists. “I lived on Maui once,” Mitchell said, “but it was too crowded.”


Indeed, Mud Lane was our own private trials course that day. We’d had eight miles of epic, technical slime to ourselves—and later, before hosing off in Waimea, I paused to inspect the evidence: a few bruises, a head-to-toe dousing in Mud Lane’s finest, and a huge smile.

The Big Island: Access and Resources

The Big Island’s Alaska Falls

FROM SEA LEVEL to the nearly 14,000-foot summit of Mauna Kea, the Big Island offers the greatest topographic relief and climatic diversity of any of the Hawaiian Islands. It’s also large enough to swallow the other Islands—twice over. So be prepared to clock some miles on that rental car.

WHERE TO STAY: Kona Village Resort has deluxe grass-roof hales—all with private lanais—in an authentic Polynesian-village setting on the Kohala Coast. Doubles start at $495 per night; 800-367-5290, . The Waipio Wayside B&B, a 1930s plantation house on the rugged Hamakua Coast, deserves raves for its big Pacific views. Doubles $95 per night; 800-833-8849, . For an upscale base camp close to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, try the Inn at Volcano. Rooms and suites, $139-$399; 800-937-7786, .
WHERE TO INDULGE: Ka’upena Ono Hawaiian Food in Hilo is the place to go for a laulau, a Hawaiian-inspired burrito. Try their Super Coma laulau, a taro-leaf-wrapped hodgepodge of steamed pork, chicken, fish, and sweet potato. 808-933-1106. Bamboo Restaurant and Gallery—part island-art showroom, part delicious eatery—is located on the hip north tip of the Island in Hawi. Its passion-fruit margarita is the best on the island; 808-889-5555.

WHERE TO…
MOUNTAIN BIKE: Grant Mitchell offers a variety of guided tours on the Big Island, for all levels of riders, starting at $65. Bike rentals range from $25 per day to $130 per week; 888-682-8687, .

DIVE: Carlos Eyles, the master of breath-hold free-diving and owner of Diving Free Hawaii, will take you to the Kona Coast’s blue edge. Three-day programs start at $300; 808-326-1569, .

HIKE: Hugh Montgomery’s Waipio Waterfall ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø takes you on a 3.5-mile rim trail that loops around the top of 1,200-foot Hi’ilawe Falls. $85 per person; 800-457-7759, .

RIDE HORSEBACK: Na’alapa Stables offers two rides: one down in the vernal heart of Waipio Valley; the other through the open range of Kahua Ranch. $75 for a 2.5-hour ride; 808-775-0419, .

Connecting the Bumps

Racing the Wind in a Modern-Day Outrigger Canoe

CENTURIES BEFORE COLUMBUS MADE his little transatlantic trip, Polynesian wayfarers were crisscrossing vast stretches of the Pacific in their great voyaging canoes, guided only by their ancestral knowledge of the stars, winds, and waves. So I can’t help but feel a certain sense of tradition blowing in the breeze as we chase gust lines in Matt Buckman’s 45-foot fiberglass Hawaiian sailing canoe. Two outriggers, connected by a trampoline, balance the narrow hull as it slices through a light chop just outside the breakers fronting Waikiki’s skyline and the serrated Ko’olau Mountains. At 75 degrees, it’s a wintry day by Honolulu standards, and the spray blowing back from the outriggers forces Matt, me, and his two canoe-racing buddies to pull on light wetsuit tops.


Canoe sailing is the long-lost cousin of outrigger paddling, the state sport of Hawaii, and uses similar boats outfitted with triangular, lateen-rigged sails. Over the last decade, Buckman and a hard-core group of sailors have been reviving the sport, competing about a dozen times a year in interisland races. On off days, he extends his passion to anyone who wants to climb aboard and hang on for dear life.
A haole (non-native) in his late thirties and raised on Oahu, Buckman has a waterman’s permanent weathered tan and will go to any length to keep his boat floating. His seat-of-the-surf-shorts exploits are notorious among fellow sailors. Once, after flipping a canoe during a race and breaking a key piece of equipment, Matt and crew were towed to shore, where he cockroached screws from a rental van to patch the broken fitting. Certified sailing canoes made for racing run about $17,000—likely the reason there are only 15 in the islands.


Buckman handles the sheet with casual ease, occasionally tossing a steering order back to Leimomi (Momi) Kekina, a compact Hawaiian woman who teaches canoe sailing at a local community college and usually races against Matt. “Steering with a paddle is the essence of what makes a canoe a canoe,” Matt observes as he watches Momi deftly work an oversize steering paddle to surf the swells and catch the gusts. “Connecting the bumps,” she calls it.


We skim along in a 20-knot wind, flying one ama (outrigger) catamaran-style over the turquoise water, and I scoot out on the canoe’s broad trampoline to provide counterweight. The boat tucks into the face of a breaking wave as easily as it rips through the reef shallows off the Ala Wai Marina, taking full advantage of the canoe’s eight-inch draft. “You won’t find too many 45-foot boats that can do this,” Matt says with pride. It’s a sleek, strong work of art that tacks well as we zigzag back up the coast toward the postcard profile of Diamond Head. Safely moored back at the Outrigger Canoe Club it looks like a nimble water bug—all legs and long thorax.


Once we’re settled into a beachside bar and sipping margaritas, I ask Momi what sailing these historic boats means to her. “When I’m out there on the ocean, I feel a sense of spiritual freedom,” she says. “It’s like my ancestors are right there with me, showing me what to do.”


“What do they tell you?” I inquire.


“To go for it!”


“We have a saying,” Matt adds. “Wherever there are two canoes together, it’s a race.”

Oahu: Access and Resources

Sunset at Oahu’s North Shore

OTHER THAN SURFERS chasing down the legendary North Shore bombs, athletic travelers tend to think of Oahu as just an urban way station en route to the wilder neighbor islands. But Honolulu is just a bike ride away from a mountain trail, an uncrowded beach, or a bustling coral reef.

WHERE TO STAY: Make the scene at Oahu’s hippest hotel, the W Honolulu, with 48 contempo-Asian designer rooms and suites. Doubles, $375; 888-528-9465, . The Hawaii Polo Inn Beach Cottage sits on deserted Mokuleia Beach with views of the North Shore’s famous surf. $125 per night; 800-669-7719, .

WHERE TO INDULGE: See and be seen at Indigo, serving creative Eurasian fare in old Chinatown. 808-521-2900. Honolulu’s Ono Hawaiian Food dishes out traditional fare like poke (spiced raw seafood) and heapings of poi (mashed taro root); 808-737-2275. Locals head to Matsumoto’s for the island’s best shaved ice. 808-637-4827, .

WHERE TO…
CANOE SAIL: Matt Buckman’s company, Aloha Spirit Hawaii, offers canoe cruises off Diamond Head and arranges custom itineraries. $25 per passenger per hour; 808-306-6012, .

KITEBOARD: Fly on Kailua Beach with Naish (yes, as in Robbie) Hawaii. A two-hour lesson costs $100; 800-767-6068, .

SURF: The Hans Hedemann Surf School teaches novices to read winds, currents, and swells—and, of course, to surf. From $50; 808-924-7778, .

SCUBA DIVE: Swim out with Haleiwa’s Surf & Sea to the marine conservation area at Shark’s Cove on the North Shore, a diverse reef of coral canyons and challenging caves. $65 per dive; 800-899-7873, .

HIKE: Explore rocky coves and tide pools on the 2.5-mile coastal trail in Kaena Point Natural Reserve on the island’s northwest tip. Or try the Kuli’ou’ou Valley and Ridge Trail in East Honolulu, a six-mile forest loop through the Ko’olau mountains. Contact the state trails program, 808-973-9782, .

MOUNTAIN BIKE: Pedal with Bike Hawaii Tours through the dense tropical foliage of the Ka’a’awa Valley. $85; 877-682-7433, .

The Universe According to Guava

Respect is All You Need to Surf Monster Waves

An aerial view of Kauai’s Hanalie Bay

GUAVA JOE HAD LINEBACKER SHOULDERS, bowlegs, sun-bleached dirty-blond hair, and that hint of cynicism that comes from carving a life out of instructing landlocked tourists in Hawaii’s highest art form—surfing. My friends and I met him at Kayak Kauai, an outfitter and boat rental in the north-shore town of Hanalei.


“You ladies looking for a surf lesson?” he asked, without introduction.


We were. But we’d heard that monster winter waves had killed two tourists and one local surfer in the last week, and all we knew about this guy, aside from his fruity name, was that he appeared to be a Coppertone cliché. So we chatted him up.


“I’m just a soul surfer, I’ve never really competed,” he told us. But the 42-year-old did seem qualified. He grew up in New Hampshire, started surfing at age five, sailed from the U.S. Virgin Islands to Massachusetts before he was 20, and moved to Kauai for the waves in 1983.


“Girls are so much easier to teach,” Guava baited us. “Guys try too hard.”


We bit.


The next morning, we met Guava and our longboards at the pier on Hanalei Bay. Spanning two miles, with the crenulated mountains of the Na Pali Coast to the west and the combed sand of the luxurious Princeville Hotel to the east, Hanalei Bay is the stuff of honeymoon fantasies. Much to our surprise, it was also an excellent spot for a newbie surfer to catch a wave, with a distant reef breaking the 12-foot tubes and allowing them to reform in the bay as gentle, slow rollers. And we figured the chalky sand bottom would soften the rub when we crashed.


“You can’t control the ocean, so you gotta have respect,” Guava preached as we sat on the beach. “You’re taking energy created by another type of energy and coming in harmony with it.” Amen, brother.


Out on the water, Guava floated on his board 20 yards beyond us. He reminded us to pop to our feet, showed us where to position ourselves in a set, and then, when an ideal ankle-slapper approached, enthusiastically called, “Paddle! Paddle!” at the top of his lungs. “That-a girl!” he yelled as I fell off my board, communed with the ocean floor, then bobbed back up through the surf. I paddled and crashed until my skin felt like sandpaper. By four, we were parched. So we bought Guava a six-pack, sat on the beach, and basked in the glory of those few seconds when we had stood on our boards and come into harmony with the universe.

Kauai: Access and Resources

Kauai’s Poipu Beach

WHERE YOU GO AFTER landing in the town of Lihue depends on the island experience you’re after: To reach the wet, tropical side of Kauai and the dramatic Na Pali Coast, head north on the Kuhio Highway. To see the less-explored cactus-strewn desert cut by 3,000-foot-deep Waimea Canyon, follow the Kaumualii Highway west. Or, If lounging on one of Kauai’s impossibly soft white-sand beaches is a priority, you don’t have to go farther than Poipu, just 20 minutes from the tarmac.

WHERE TO STAY: Rent one of 48 two-bedroom condominiums at the Hanalei Colony Resort fronting the perfect beach on Kepuhe Point; $160 per night; 800-628-3004, www.hcr.com. In Waimea, book one of 53 rustic bungalows at Aston Waimea Plantation Cottages. From $215 per night; 800-992-4632, .

WHERE TO INDULGE: Join the surfing crowd at Zelo’s Beach House Restaurant and Grill in Hanalei for fresh-strawberry pi-a coladas and macadamia-nut-crusted ono; 808-826-9700, . The high-end Beach House restaurant overlooks Kuhio Beach in Poipu and serves a wonderful ahi taster combo plate—ahi poke, ahi tostadas, and an ahi hash spring roll; 808-742-1424, .

HOW TO…
SURF: Go with Guava or one of 12 other instructors at Kayak Kauai in Hanalei; $40 per 90-minute lesson; 800-437-3507, .

SEA KAYAK: Paddle past 4,000-foot cliffs on the remote Na Pali Coast, arguably the world’s most beautiful kayaking destination, with Outfitters Kauai; $165 per person, 888-742-9887, .

HIKE: Walk the 11-mile Nu’alolo/awa’a-Puhi Loop Trail above the stunning Na Pali Coast; the $231-per-person price includes lunch, guides, and transportation; 800-437-3507, .

DIVE: Just outside of Haena, Tunnels Reef is a maze of caves, caverns, and lava tubes winding 60 feet below the surface of the Pacific. Call Dive Kauai scuba center in Kapaa; $98 per one-tank dive; 800-828-3483, .

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Full Suspension of Disbelief

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The post “You Are in Bear Country” appeared first on ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Online.

Okay, so you’ve mastered the art of doing absolutely nothing but soaking up the rays, ordered up just one more piña colada, and achieved beached-whale nirvana. Then what? How about one of these seven full-tilt and sublime adventures (plus several more bold diversions) to inject a jolt of adrenaline into your next Caribbean idyll? Because even paradise needs an edge.

Recharge: pulling into a tube at Salsipuedes beach near Isabela, Puerto Rico

BAHAMAS
PUERTO RICO
HONDURAS
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
GRENADINES
DOMINICA
VENEZUELA
ISLAND HOPS

Bahamas

Nothing but Blue Seas Below

Paddling to remote Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park

THERE ARE TWO imperatives for a successful trip to the Exumas, a mostly uninhabited, 120-mile-long archipelago that stretches in a narrow crescent from southeast of Nassau in the Bahamas to the Tropic of Cancer. First, while in George Town, the capital, stop in to see the Shark Lady, aka Gloria Patience, a legendary septuagenarian who earned her nickname—not to mention an audience with Queen Elizabeth II—by hunting down some 1,500 sharks around Great Exuma Island over her lifetime. Second, ignore her on the subject of sea kayaking, because she doesn’t realize she lives in the best damn place in the Caribbean for paddling.

Here in the Exumas, the sea is like Bombay Sapphire in a bottle—a perfect blue lens for a paddler’s up-close perspective, magnifying yellow coral heads, purple sea fans, and tropical fish aplenty. The 88-degree, unpolluted water offers world-class snorkeling, and there are no fewer than 365 cays to explore. “Most classic sea-kayaking trips—Baja, the Honduran Bay Islands—follow a coastline,” says sea-kayak outfitter Bardy Jones of New York–based Ibis Tours. “In Exuma, you’re tiptoeing across a string of islands. You can look to the left and look to the right and see wide-open ocean. It’s kind of intimidating, and it’s seriously remote.”

If you have at least a week and you arrive during the spring, hop a 25-minute charter flight from George Town to Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park near the northern Exuma port town of Staniel Cay, where two outfitters have been guiding weeklong, 50-mile trips in the park by sea kayak for more than a decade. Established in 1958, the 176-square-mile park is a no-take (i.e. no-fishing) zone that serves as a nursery for grouper, conch, and lobster. Miniscule cays spring up everywhere, home to the white-tailed tropicbird—a smallish bird endowed with a spectacular, three-foot-long white streamer—and the faded ruins of British loyalist plantations.

If you have less than a week, sign up as I did with Starfish, the only Exuma-based outfitter, in George Town. For two days I explored the red mangrove colonies and bonefish flats of the nearly deserted south side of Great Exuma with a taciturn Dutch guide, Valentijn Hoff, and his younger Bahamian sidekick, Philip Smith, who entertained us with his granny’s bush-medicine wisdom: The “juice” from a ghost crab kills an earache, tea from the “strongback” plant increases male virility, and sniffing crushed orange peel dispels seasickness. After a short hike around 18th-century limestone ruins on rocky Crab Cay, we camped on the sand of an unnamed barrier island, uninhabited but for a ravenous air force of mosquitoes and no-see-ums.

But the trip’s standout hour came the next morning. As we coasted back toward George Town, the hot sun splintered through the turquoise sea, casting a brilliant net that scrolled across the white-sand floor—picture an enormous David Hockney pool. Then, from just beyond my right paddle, came a sudden, loud outbreath. Three dolphins leaped among our bright plastic hulls for a moment and then vanished.

Access + Resources

Whether you arrive in Exuma during the dry season, from December to May, or the wet from June to October, which averages six to nine inches rainfall per month, it’s easy to locate an ocean-worthy kayak and all the gear you need to set out to sea.

GETTING OUTFITTED: Starfish (877-398-6222; ) runs trips around the coast and barrier islands of Great Exuma and Little Exuma for $45 (half-day) to $75 (full day) per person year-round; overnight trips, like the 12-mile route I did, cost $150 per person per day for the first two days, and $100 per night for every night after that. If you want to go it on your own, Starfish rents touring kayaks ($30 per day for singles, $40 for doubles) as well as Hobie Wave sailboats ($50 for a half-day), tents, and other camping gear. March through May, Ibis Tours (800-525-9411; ) runs eight-day trips in Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park () in the northern half of the archipelago for $1,595 per person, including charter airfare from Nassau.

GETTING THERE: American Airlines (800-433-7300) flies from New York to Nassau for about $420 round-trip, $360 from Atlanta. Charter airfare from Nassau is included in outfitters’ package prices; or, if you’re traveling on your own, ask at your hotel or the local marina for information on the many private planes that can fly you to Staniel Cay for about $250 one-way.

LODGING: George Town’s Peace & Plenty (800-525-2210; ) is the small town’s clubby social hub. Doubles start at $175.

Puerto Rico

Riders on the Perfect Storm

Tough commute: heading out to a break on Puerto Rico’s west coast

IF YOU HAPPEN to reach for your sheet one night in your cabina in Rincón, Puerto Rico, you’ll know the cold front has arrived. No worries: By the time the big lows that rumble out of the Arctic and fling nor’easters at the whole eastern seaboard hit Puerto Rico, they’re feeble, welcome whiffs of free AC. But before you snuggle under your sheet and drift back to sleep, listen close—feel—for the detonations, because cold fronts bring good tidings. Far out in the dark, thundering like a thousand derailing boxcars, is just what you came for, and at dawn, you’ll have your proof: Pools Beach submerged, seawater raging up into the dry streambed, and the surf…humongous.

If it’s early in your trip, congratulations—you’ve won the raffle! The swell will last three or four days at least. And now you’ve got a ton of good options. (As for your surf-swell lotto odds, they’re excellent in February, good for March, but dicey after April Fools’ Day.) There’s surf on the whole north coast of Puerto Rico, from San Juan to the Punta Borinquén corner, and more along the west coast south to Rincón. In fact, the northwest corner of the island is Oahu’s North Shore writ small—OK, miniature—but also minus the ego wars and the raging King Kamehameha Highway.

Start by heading to Tres Palmas, less than five minutes by car from Rincón, and the island’s biggest wave. A deep-water reef and a thousand-mile stare across the Puerto Rico Trench mean you see the real fist-prints of the storm from here. To the south it’s all channel, and an easy, if tense and longish, paddle out to the breakers. But unless you’re a badass—and even if you are—beware of Tres Palmas: The sneaker sets are sneakier than you are, and even on a ten-foot day (the minimum for Tres), there’ll likely be a 15-foot set with your name on it.

For a base of operations, it’s hard to top that cabina in Rincón, the Capital de Surf on the island’s west end, which has all the amenities of a small resort town tweaked for its surfista clientele. It’s Gringolandia, fer sure, but you can rent anything from a Ted Kaczynski cabin under a palm tree to a villa in the lush hills and be within walking distance of dozens of breaks. Rincón is the most bike- and pedestrian-friendly surf destination I know, and the unofficial capital of the Capital, Calypso Bar and Grill, sits within binocular range of Tres Palmas and boasts a commanding view of The Point, arguably PR’s best point break. Restless? Take a quick 300-yard hike from Rincón along the tawny, tide-pool-bejeweled beach up to El Faro, a lighthouse atop a grassy bluff where the whale-watchers gather. From there, it’s a quarter-mile or so up a rutted dirt road to Domes, site of a defunct nuclear apparatus and a sliver of beach whose first-rate right point has an inside-bowl section perfect for launching aerials. And don’t neglect Spanish Wall, a few steps farther north, or Sandy Beach, just around another small point and anchored by its own pub, the Tamboo Tavern.

Meanwhile, a case for day trips can easily be made. Get up early to beat the gridlock in Aguadilla and drive 30 miles north of Rincón to Wilderness, a series of spacious reef breaks at the foot of the old Ramey military base golf course. With its rugged coast of tall causarina pines, Wildo is lovely. Or venture farther north to the less populous dunes around Jobos, or even remoter spots such as Shacks or Middles. Middles is said to be the best all-around wave on the island, an A-frame barrel on its signature days.
Still can’t quite picture it? Allow me: It’s the third day of a weeklong swell, and you’re at the end of an afternoon session. You’ve been working your way north as the crowd thinned, moving from the overhead right and left peaks of Dogman’s, over the shallow reef at Maria’s for some tuck-in tubes, and now at twilight you’re shading toward The Point itself with just a handful of surfers still out. The sun is slipping down behind Desecheo, the silhouette of the island looking like Captain Nemo’s Nautilus. On shore, the lights of the Calypso are twinkling, music wafting out over the water. You take off on a wave that’s tall, razor-thin, backlit, and burnished by the setting sun, thinking it might be your last wave of the day. But then it lines up so sweetly, section after section, that when you kick, spray slightly chilling you with that faintest hint of winter, you think, well, maybe one more. And here comes a guy paddling out, wall-to-wall grin, who says he just arrived from Maine. “Took off in a snowstorm,” he says. “Man, am I glad to be here.”

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GETTING OUTFITTED: TWA (800-221-2000) flies from New York’s JFK to Aguadilla (30 minutes by car from Rincón) for $288; or try TWA from Fort Lauderdale to San Juan (two hours’ drive from the west end) for $285. American Airlines offers Miami–San Juan flights for $350. The major U.S. rental-car agencies have outlets at both Puerto Rico airports.

OUTFITTERS: Best to bring your own board, but there are several surf shops in Rincón where you can rent or buy used boards in an emergency. Also, if you stay at the Rincón Surf and Board, they’ll rent you one.

WHERE TO STAY: I recommend either Rincón Surf and Board (787-823-0610; ), with suites for $85 per night and dorm-style accommodations for $20 per person, or the Lazy Parrot Inn and Restaurant (787-823-5654). Rates at the Lazy Parrot run $85 for a single, $95 for a double, including a pool. For extended stays or more posh spreads, try Island West Properties (787-823-2323), which lists peak-season rentals (lots are oceanfront) from $553 to $3,675 weekly.

Honduras

Tropical Thrilla in Utila

Give me five: reef life in the Bay Islands

TIME WAS THAT on Tuesday nights, everyone went a bit mad on the island of Utila. It was the day when the supply ship made the 20-mile trip from mainland Honduras, bringing oil for the island generators. As a result, the lights stayed on late and the island became one big electric fiesta. The bars—including my favorite, the Bucket of Blood—set up their good sound systems and the dancing and partying (aka “liming”) ripped full tilt. The supply ship comes to the island’s only town, East Harbor, every day now, which doesn’t mean Utilans don’t still know how to throw a good lime. But even during the high season, which sees less than a couple hundred tourists at any given time, the action tends to wind down before midnight. Negril it ain’t. The reason? Everyone gets up early to dive.

The water averages a mellow 80 degrees Fahrenheit and is as clear as any in the Caribbean when the seas are calm—practically all year, from November to September. On the north shore of Utila are walls where the shallows suddenly drop from five feet to 1,500. On the southeast side, near the airport, are magnificent reefs of soft coral and sea fans. The Bay Islands host a wide variety of aquatic life—from sea horses to sea turtles, and corals such as pillar, elkhorn, lettuce, star, and brain—but they’re also a veritable graveyard of ships. The mainland port of Trujillo was once the main shipping point for the Spanish, and Utila and Roatán were the hideouts for 17th-century buccaneers like Captain Henry Morgan. There are regularly scheduled dives to such famous 20th-century wrecks as the Prince Albert off Roatán or the Jado Trader off Guanaja, and I heard it said a dozen times that for the right price to the right pocket, dives can be arranged to some of the old colonial wreck sites.

During the three weeks I spent on Utila, evenings at the Bucket of Blood, followed by early-morning dives, defined my routine. Later each morning, I’d hang out, read, and swim until I washed up like waterlogged detritus on the beach. After a cheap fresh-fish lunch it was time for a hammock nap, and then in late afternoon I’d climb the hill up to the Bucket of Blood for dominoes with Mr. Cliford Woods, the owner, who has since passed away. He’d mutter angrily whenever he saw me in the doorway, so I think he looked forward to it. Still, every afternoon after he’d given me a good whuppin’ at the table, he’d say, “So tomorrow you’ll be going home, eh?”

Islanders’ attitudes—along with a low beach-to-marshland ratio—have so far saved the island from massive tourism development. Twenty-five-square-mile Utila, the islands of Roatán and Guanaja, and some smaller uninhabited and sparsely inhabited cays comprise Honduras’s Bay Islands. (In 1998, Hurricane Mitch devastated Guanaja, doing thousands of dollars’ worth of damage, but left Utila virtually unscathed.) Most of Utila’s 5,000 inhabitants live along Main Street, a narrow road that runs along the crescent-shaped bay of the east side. It’s a bike-and-hike island when it’s not too hot to move around.
But most of all, it’s a dive island. Some of the world’s least expensive scuba certification programs operate out of the dozen or so different dive shops along Main Street.

On one of my leisurely dives just a hundred feet from the tiny airport’s runway, I fell into a trance among the delicate sea fans, letting the schools of parrot fish, indigo hamlets, rock hinds, and the occasional sea turtle circle but otherwise ignore me as they went about their business. Suddenly, a huge dark shadow came toward me and then, in a flash, passed overhead. My first panicked thought, of course, was that it was the Mother of All Great White Sharks. I swam hard and broke the surface a few yards from land. That’s when I saw that the large, looming shadow was in fact a small plane landing at the airstrip.
Afterwards, when I dropped in on Mr. Cliford, I downed a Port Royal and told him of my high adventure. He looked at me as he might a failed vaudeville act. “You know, there’s not a day go by I don’t wish you tourists would stay home,” he said with a long sigh, pausing to move a domino. “Or at least go to Roatán.”

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GETTING THERE: The best way to reach Utila’s waterfront airstrip is by flying on one of the major carriers into San Pedro Sula, Honduras (American Airlines, 800-433-7300, $840 from New York, $420 from Miami), and then connecting to either SOSA (011-504-425-3161) or Atlantic (011-504-425-3241) for the short $110 round-trip to Utila.

DIVING: According to Troy Bodden, owner of Utila Water Sports (011-504-425-3239), the owners of most of the dive shops on the island, such as Cross Creek (011-504-425-3134), Bay Islands College of Diving (011-504-425-3143), and EcoMarine Gunter’s (011-504-425-3350), have cooperatively priced the basic PADI beginner open-water certification—including four to five days of instruction, equipment, and two tanks—at $159 per person.

WHERE TO STAY: There are several clean, basic hotels in East Harbor for under $20 a night, with ceiling fans and occasional hot water. I stayed at the Bayview Hotel (011-504-425-3114) for $14 (ask for the first-floor room facing the bay); I also recommend Hotel Trudy Laguna del Mar ($15, 011-504-425-3103) and Utila Lodge ($75, 011-504-425-3143), which has amenities like air-conditioning and a recompression chamber.

Dominican Republic

The Bigger Island, the Better Ride

Hot Wheels: the Rocky MF trail in the El Choco National Park, Dominican Republic

CONVENTIONAL WISDOM has it that the tiniest Caribbean islands are the most precious and desirable. Think eight-square-mile St. Bart’s, or the newly chic crop of “single-resort islands.” This logic is fine if your idea of dry-land adventure starts and ends with daily barefoot beach strolls. But if you’re a mountain biker seeking enough varied terrain to explore for more than an hour or two, you probably subscribe to that all-American axiom “Bigger is better.” Hence the allure of the 19,000-square-mile Dominican Republic, which occupies the eastern two-thirds of the Caribbean’s second-largest island, Hispaniola. (Haiti lies to the west.) And it’s not just size that appeals: The range and diversity of riding here beat any you’ll find elsewhere in the Caribbean.

Flying into Puerto Plata on the north coast, you immediately see that the country has more to offer than beaches. With tropical bush–covered peaks rising steeply from the cultivated coastline, the Dominican Republic looks like a rugged, misplaced chunk of Central America. Forget the value-priced, all-inclusive resort compounds for which the DR is dubiously famous. Instead, take a 20-minute taxi ride east from the airport to Cabarete, and make it your home base for two-wheel adventure.

A tiny fishing village when wave-craving Canadian and Swiss windsurfers started showing up more than a dozen years ago, Cabarete has quickly matriculated from backpacker’s crash pad to a thriving, polyglot adrenaline-sports colony. A few Cabarete outfitters have turned their backs on the ocean to focus on the region’s river-threaded valleys, limestone caves, misting waterfalls, and twin cordilleras (10,414-foot Pico Duarte, 100 miles southwest of Cabarete, is the highest peak in the Caribbean). Upstate New York native Tricia Suriel is foremost among these inland guides. With her seven-year-old company, Iguana Mama, she’s scouted hundreds of miles of bike routes, on everything from paved roads to goat paths to highly technical singletrack across waist-deep rivers. If you bring your own bike—or rent one of Iguana Mama’s new XT-equipped Specialized RockHoppers and ride guideless—it’s still smart to sign on for a ride or two to get oriented.

One standout trail, the cryptic-sounding Rocky MF, is a remote, seven-mile experts-only ride that climbs up and then careens down jagged, rock-mined singletrack, all beneath the dense shade of mango and avocado trees in El Choco National Park, one of the country’s newest, just outside Cabarete. But most day rides from Cabarete are less technical, rambling forays into the Cordillera Septentrional. As you pedal, the ubiquitous concrete-block shops selling Coke and lottery tickets thin out. Soon you’re passing pink-and-green-painted wooden shacks and hibiscus bushes draped with wet laundry. Uniformed schoolkids rush out to try for rolling high fives; farther outside town, they just stare shyly. Trading dirt road for rutted cow path, you navigate between leafy “living fences”—piñon stakes revivified in the fertile soil. Above shoulder-deep pasture grass, egrets flash white, tending humpbacked Brahman bulls.

Slowly absorbing the way life is lived here is what can make riding in the DR so eye-opening. Curious locals seem willing to entertain the rustiest of Spanish-language overtures. Up for some real immersion? Join one of Iguana Mama’s multiday trips (they’ll design custom itineraries, or you can book ahead for one of their five-day expeditions). During an overnight to Armando Bermudez National Park, near the base of Pico Duarte, my small group enjoyed a vegetarian coconut-milk stew with the park ranger’s family, and then sneaked our sleeping bags inside park headquarters to escape a nocturnal downpour.
All this is not to say you should sacrifice the island’s more traditional Caribbean seductions for mountain biking: They are best enjoyed hand-in-hand, as exemplified by a triumphant return to the beach at Cabarete after a good hard ride. Late afternoons, you can try out everything from Hobie Cats to sea kayaks to kiteboards. Or my personal favorite, a nice long bodysurfing session and a face-in-the-sand nap.

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GETTING THERE: American Airlines (800-433-7300) flies round-trip to Puerto Plata for about $460 from New York, $360 from Miami. An $18 taxi ride gets you from the airport to Cabarete.

OUTFITTERS: Mountain-bike day trips with Iguana Mama (800-849-4720; ) run $40 to $85 per person. The five-day Dominican Alps inn-to-inn trip costs $950 per person, including guides, equipment, hotel lodging, and meals; customized biking and camping trips are also available. Bikes rent for $30 per day.

WHERE TO STAY: The newly renovated Cabarete Palm Beach Condos (809-571-0758) are spacious and homey, with great beachfront balconies. Two-bedroom condos cost $60 to $160 a night, depending on season and occupancy; studios go for $40 to $70. The 60-unit Windsurf Resort (809-571-0718) charges $74 for a one-bedroom poolside apartment.

Grenadines

The Pleasure of a Steady Nine Knots

Rum Runners: sailing near Palm Island

FOR SEASICKNESS, try beer and peanut butter. I hit on this desperation diet my second morning aboard the Boom Shak-A-Lak, a 45-foot Beneteau sloop that three friends and I had chartered for a two-week, early-winter cruise through the Grenadines. As a novice mariner, I’d had visions of a leisurely sail through bathtub-still waters, the moist tranquility of the tropics permeating my vacation-deprived soul. That nonsense was immediately debunked once we left our mooring in Bequia’s Port Elizabeth. After passing the lee of the island, we were borne by a stiff wind to port as we sliced through the steely water—nearly perpendicular to it—at a steady nine knots. Then for two nights we were pounded by unseasonal rain and high winds that left us cranky and queasy; surprisingly, a breakfast of Corona and Skippy calmed my churning stomach, and what had started out looking like a two-week ordeal instead became a promising adventure.

Known for their unblemished white-sand beaches, spectacular reefs, and northeasterly trade winds, the Grenadines, a minimally developed archipelago in the eastern Caribbean, are an ideal place to drop off the map for a while, guided by the whims of the wind and the waves. Our loose plan was to sail from north to south, stopping at Mustique, the Tobago Cays, Canouan, and Union before ending the trip in Grenada.

After the initial excitement aboard the Boom Shak-A-Lak, I expected our focus to be the islands, with the sailing merely the means of getting from one to the next. In fact, for all their splendor, the islands—celebrity-clogged Mustique, low-key Canouan, the uninhabited Tobago Cays—began to blur together in my mind, while the time spent under full sail, surfing the swells as the wind howled around us, made me feel most alive. In contrast to the relative sameness of the closely spaced landmasses, the sea was infinitely variable, hypnotizing me with its shifts of color and light.

Quickly, we settled into an unhurried routine of rising late, breakfasting on board, and then sailing from one island to the next, stopping along the way to dive the region’s many reefs. Evenings, we went ashore to dine and drink and compare notes with other sailors, most of them French or German. After ten days or so, the land had all but ceased to exist—I didn’t care if we ever docked the boat. By the time we anchored in Tyrrell Bay on Carriacou (politically part of Grenada, but geographically a continuation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines), we were so attuned to the rhythms of the sea that we now felt queasy only when we ventured onto dry land.

A party at Carriacou’s yacht club, the best that we’d found, soon took care of that. In addition to surprisingly good food, something of a rarity in these parts, we were served the most potent rum punch of the trip, heavily laced with Iron Jack, a spirit so strong (190 proof) that its manufacture is banned in most of the Caribbean. Smuggled in from Trinidad, where it’s legal, or brewed in clandestine backyard stills, Iron Jack has a reputation for bringing even the most experienced rum-swiller to her knees. Sure enough, halfway through our dinner of roti and french fries we were barely able to remain upright, the conversation degenerating into uproarious laughter over nothing in particular. And that was after only one drink.

Back on board the next morning, we discovered that our dinghy had disappeared, and no one could quite remember who had been designated to tie it up. In fact, we couldn’t remember returning to the boat at all. As we prepared, somewhat fuzzily, to sail for Grenada, our final stop, we were a somber bunch. Fortunately, beer and peanut butter works for hangovers, too.

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GETTING THERE: There’s no easy way to get to the Grenadines. The most direct route is to fly to San Juan, Puerto Rico, where you can connect to a nonstop flight to St. Vincent on American Eagle ($330). Most of the yacht-charter operations are on St. Vincent or Grenada; Bequia is a nine-mile ferry ride from St. Vincent.

YACHT CHARTERS: We got our boat through Trade Wind Yachts (800-825-7245; ), which also handled our airline tickets and hotel reservations in San Juan. A Beneteau 445 like ours, with three cabins and three heads with showers, rents for $2,065 to $3,458 per week, depending on the season.

Dominica

Moonscapes and Mountain Chickens

Hell of a time: Dominica’s Boiling Lake Trail

DOMINICA ISN’T YOUR typical Caribbean paradise: There are few beaches to speak of, and the snorkeling’s only so-so. But if you’re the kind to go stir crazy after a couple of languorous hours surfside, you’ll agree—this place is heaven. The largest but least populated isle in the eastern Caribbean’s Windward chain, Dominica has 289 square miles of rugged, 4,000-foot mountains, active volcanoes, old-growth tropical rainforest, and more than 300 miles of hikable trails. On my last visit, hoping to spot an exotic bird (Dominica boasts 172 avian species) or a ten-inch crapaud (locals call these big, tasty frogs “mountain chickens”), I followed Glen, my dreadlocked local guide, up the Syndicate Nature Trail, a rocky ten-mile path through stands of gnarled, hundred-foot chataignier trees, to the summit of 4,747-foot Morne Diablotin, the highest point on the island. Not two hours in, a blue-green Sisserou, the largest, rarest Amazon parrot, glided across the clearing on three-foot wings to land just a few feet ahead of us.

The surreal landscape on the eight-mile, eight-hour out-and-back hike to Boiling Lake, a 200-foot cauldron of bubbling, gray-blue water that simmers at upwards of 200 degrees Fahrenheit and recalls Milton’s Paradise Lost, was equally spectacular. The trail winds through Morne Trois Piton National Park, a 17,000-acre preserve just west of Roseau, climbing the 45-degree slopes of 2,700-foot Morne Nichols before dropping into the Valley of Desolation, a half-mile-wide moonscape of sharp volcanic rocks, hissing steam vents, and hot springs, some of the cooler ones ideal for soaking.

World-class hiking in the Caribbean? Jah, mon.

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GETTING THERE: Dominica is a two-hour flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico ($290, American Eagle, 800-433-7300), or 30 minutes from Guadeloupe ($150, LIAT, 268-480-5601).

OUTFITTERS: You will need a guide—the island’s 300-plus inches of annual rainfall means trails are often washed out and difficult to follow. Hire one ($40 a day) through your hotel. Ken’s Hinterland ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Tours (767-448-4850; ) can arrange group hikes or kayaking trips.

WHERE TO STAY: Papillote Wilderness Retreat (767-448-2287;), a cozy inn five miles from Roseau, offers double rooms for $90 a night. Simple, fan-cooled doubles at the colonial-style Springfield Plantation Guest House (767-449-1401), 15 miles northwest of Roseau, also go for $90.

Venezuela

Love on Los Roques

Lean machine: caught speeding near Los Roques National Park

MY PALMS WERE beginning to burn—a sign of the blisters to come—but I couldn’t resist; I pulled hard on the boom and trimmed the sail against another gust. The entire length of the board lifted off the water and shuddered, then settled back on a few inches of fin. I barreled across the channel toward the tiny island of Esparqui, its thick tangle of mangrove trees growing larger by the second, and waited as long as I could before throwing the rig forward and turning sharply through the wind, away from the sandy shore. A huge sea turtle slid beneath me as I headed back to my launch, an empty, salt-white stretch of beach now a good mile away. Except for the masts of a few sailboats shimmering in a distant anchorage downwind, I was the only thing on the water.

Perfect wind, every conceivable sailing option, warm, clear seas, and utter isolation. In 15 years of windsurfing all over the world, I’d never seen anything like this. Just 11 degrees above the equator and 85 miles north of Caracas, Venezuela’s Los Roques National Park is a pristine archipelago of some 350 small islands, cays, and reefs scattered across 15 miles of iridescent turquoise water. First charted by Spanish explorers 470 years ago, it has remained a refuge from time and civilization, with 1,200 or so residents and few visitors save a handful of hard-core yachtsmen and bonefishing addicts, and the 200 or so windsurfers who ride its steady stream of east-northeasterly trades each year. A primitive airstrip near Gran Roques, the collection of empty sand streets and sun-bleached pastel facades that is Los Roques’ only town, is the one link to reality.

Arriving on Francisqui, an hourglass-shaped island less than a mile long, via a fisherman’s small, open peñero several hours earlier, I had trouble taking it all in. To my left was the flat water of the channel, perfect for easy cruising or speed runs to other islands; on my right lay two reef breaks—a left and a right—for shredding chest-high waves and jumping. Beyond them, rolling swells of open ocean. And every possibilityblessed with 13 to 22 knots of the kind of breeze windsurfers dream about. There was only one thing missing.

“What,” I jokingly asked my guide, Elias Pernales, “no point break?”

He gestured over my shoulder toward the tip of the island. “Ten, maybe twelve tacks upwind and around the anchorage. But it’s tricky getting through the reef, so I don’t bring too many people there.”

Pernales, a relaxed, 36-year-old Venezuelan with a body straight off the cover of a fitness rag, manages Vela Los Roques, the only windsurfing operation on the islands. Working alone out of an open, metal-roofed hut stocked with 30 new sailboards and a huge quiver of pre-rigged sails, he spends his days guiding intermediate and expert sailors—rarely more than three or four in a day even during the high season, thanks to Los Roques’ remoteness—as they weave between islands or along the serpentine barrier reefs. We spent the morning gliding between jagged cays and exploring hidden lagoons, and then retreated to the welcome shade of his “office” for a lunch of fresh tuna steaks, cold pineapple slices, and frosty Polars—the light pilsner that’s considered the national beer of Venezuela. Just as I was eyeballing the hammock, Pernales dragged out a two-man kayak. “Time for some snorkeling, eh?”

We did, among waving sea fans and yellowtailed angelfish near yet another deserted cay. By the time we paddled back to Francisqui, the tide had shifted and the swell was up, so it was out to the reef for some five-foot waves. I tacked upwind a few hundred yards and began slicing down the smooth, right-breaking faces, trying to stay focused on the sharp coral just below the surface. As the tropical sky began to grow pink, I spotted the peñero buzzing slowly across the bay to retrieve us, but I couldn’t bring myself to head in. Instead, I turned the board toward the horizon and raked the sail back for speed.

Access + Resources

GETTING THERE: American (800-433-7300) or Continental (800-231-0856) Airlines can fly you nonstop from New York or Miami to Caracas, Venezuela, and book your 50-minute connecting flight to Margarita Island ($800 total from New York, $687 from Miami). Vela Windsurf Resorts will provide air transportation from Margarita to Los Roques (see Outfitters, below).

OUTFITTERS: U.S.–based Vela Windsurf Resorts (800-223-5443; ) runs the only windsurfing operation in Los Roques and takes clients on single- or multiday excursions to the archipelago from its Margarita Island resort, 180 miles west of Los Roques. Trips leave Margarita Island daily and include round-trip airfare (it’s a 60-minute flight) on Venezuela’s Aerotuy Airlines, boat transfers, accommodations at one of several small guest houses in Gran Roques, meals, equipment, and guide service (one day/one night, $185 per person; three days/two nights, $525). The $16 national-park entry fee is not included.

Island Hops

Even more splendid ways to escape from the chaise longue

Guadeloupe: Pedal Like the Pros
Professional cyclists from around the world meet on this butterfly-shaped isle for the annual Tour de Guadeloupe, a 797-mile, ten-stage road race. The race comes to the island in August, but you can ride the circuit any time (call Dom Location, 011-590-88-84-81, for a map and bike rental, $10/day). Or ditch the bike and explore the island’s offroad attractions: black-sand beaches, jungle waterfalls, and the short hike through clouds of sulfur to the top of La Soufrière volcano.

St. Barthélemy: Buff Enough to Surf
The curl at the out-of-the-way (and, unofficially, clothing-optional) Anse de Grande Saline beach is the island’s best for bodysurfing. The half-mile-long stretch of white sand on the south shore is a 15-minute walk and worlds away from the Hollywood types at St. Danjean Beach. Call the St. Bart’s Tourist Office, 011-590-27-87-27.

Cuba: Total Immersion
Wheel through Havana with the local biking club. Hone your underused salsa moves. Debate hot political issues using your newly mastered verbs (like derrocar—to overthrow). All this and more on a two- to four-week crash course in Spanish language, Cuban culture, and island adventure. Call Cuban Outreach Tours, 415-648-2239; .

St. Lucia: Climb the Big Piton
St. Lucia’s lush, volcanic twin peaks tower over sunbathers on the beach below—but why sit around in the shadows? Though local foresters have tagged precipitous and overgrown 2,461-foot Petit Piton off-limits due to falling rock, the summit of 2,619-foot Gros Piton begs to be topped, and the 2.5-mile trek can be done in four hours. Call the St. Lucia Forestry Department, 758-450-2078, for maps and information.

Trinidad: Walk with the Animals
Hike past the Lagon Bouffe Mud Volcano and two miles up a forest path, where howler monkeys, peccaries, and orange-winged parrots await you in the Trinity Hills Wildlife Sanctuary—a private preserve owned, interestingly enough, by a local oil company. To visit, call the Incoming Tour Operators’ Association of Trinidad and Tobago, 868-633-4733.

Jamaica: Raft the (Other) Rio Grande
Play Huck Finn for a day on a guided, seven-mile run down the Class I water of the lower Rio Grande in the jungly Blue Mountains. Your craft: a 30-by-6-foot, hand-hewn bamboo raft. The highlight: chatting with rural Jamaicans—and Red Stripe vendors—along the riverbank. Call Valley Hikes, 876-993-3881.

Martinique: Absalon, Absalon!
Bushwhack through the rainforest, rappel down a 40-foot cliff, navigate a boulder field, and then slip into the 90-degree, orange (from the iron in the rocks below) waters of the Absalon Thermal Spring. Call Aventures Tropicales, 011-596-75-24-24; .

Jost Van Dyke: La Vida Coco
Watch the sun set over White Bay and grab a painkiller (Pusser’s rum, Coco Lopez, multiple juices, and the obligatory nutmeg) at the self-serve Stress-Free Bar (284-495-9358) on Jost Van Dyke, a three-square-mile dot in the British Virgin Islands. Then pick up a guitar, bongos, or an empty coffee can and jam into the night with the eclectic house band. (Bonus: There’s a campground out back.)

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ONE MORNING in late August, about 70 gravity addicts will take elevators to the 73rd floors of the Petronas Towers—identical skyscrapers soaring 1,483 feet above downtown Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. There, they will step out a window onto a five-foot-wide platform and take in the view from the tallest office buildings on earth. Then, one after another, they’ll chuck themselves off.

Might as well jump: Californian BASE jumpers Brian Chopin and Henry Boger step off the Menara Kuala Lumpur tower, February 2001.

The Malaysia International Championship of Skydiving, scheduled for August 27 through September 2, is only the latest high-profile event in a string of state-sanctioned group BASE jumps from the Malaysian capital’s landmarks (which also include 1,381-foot Menara Kuala Lumpur, the world’s fourth-tallest communications tower). Last January during the Malaysia SkyVenture World Record Xtreme Skydive, 15 parachutists celebrated New Year’s by simultaneously jumping from the Petronas Towers and landing gently in a downtown park, where they were presented with medals for “bravery” by Mahathir bin Mohamad, Malaysia’s prime minister. His message: Malaysia, a nation best known for its Buddhist temples, is setting up shop as the global mecca of BASE jumping, a deadly offshoot of skydiving that is vilified in the United States and many other countries because its 2,000-odd practitioners commonly trespass on, and then leap off—frequently with tragic results—rooftops, bridges, radio towers, and cliffs. Devotees insist that with proper equipment and training, the risks of BASE can be made manageable, but since the late seventies it has killed at least 50 people—including Carl Boenish, who in 1978 first popularized the sport when he pitched himself off Yosemite’s 3,604-foot El Capitan (he perished six years later during a leap off a 5,400-foot cliff in Norway).
So how did an activity that first caught headlines in California’s High Sierra find its way across the Pacific to become a Southeast Asian monarchy’s extreme sport du jour? Credit Canadian mechanical engineer and skydiving instructor Martin Dumas, 32, who relocated to Kuala Lumpur in November 1998 to help build a rapid-transit system, but soon found himself planning the country’s first organized BASE jump with two Malaysians, sales and marketing exec Aziz Ahmad, 44, and Rahmat Omar Tunhanif, 34, who owns a furniture factory. Since then, more than 70 of the sport’s disciples—hailing from as far afield as Iceland and Saudi Arabia—have merrily, and legally, flung themselves off Kuala Lumpur buildings.


Of course, it’s a different story in the States, where BASE is infamous for clandestine rooftop sorties and sensational screwups. In the past year, more than a dozen jumpers have been arrested, including Harry Caylor, who last fall leaped off the top of downtown Denver’s Embassy Suites Hotel, only to catch a gust and crash through a window into an unoccupied room. (Bleeding profusely, he walked out of the lobby and called an ambulance, but the cops arrived first and arrested him.) In October 1999, professional stuntwoman Jan Davis perished before 150 spectators when her borrowed chute failed to deploy in an illegal leap off El Cap (BASE jumping is still against the law in America’s national parks). Ironically, Davis’s jump had been intended to memorialize Frank Gambalie III, who only four months before had drowned in the Merced River while fleeing park rangers after his own illicit leap from El Cap (see “,” October 1999).


While short on 3,000-foot cliffs, Kuala Lumpur does not lack for lofty launchpads—the city has 14 buildings over 500 feet high. Further, Malaysia aggressively courts extreme sporting events, and has hosted the Asian X-Games and the World Hang Gliding Championships. “If we didn’t take risks, we’d still be in caves,” says Ahmad, who, with 14 launches under his belt, is the nation’s most experienced BASE jumper.


To a country like Malaysia, where tourism is the third-largest source of domestic revenue, the specter of deaths like those in the U.S. is apparently outshoneby the dazzle of dollar signs. As of early summer, the management of the Menara Kuala Lumpur tower was jockeying with SkyVenture Productions—the promoters of the events at the Petronas Towers. Both want to ink lucrative broadcast contracts with America’s cable networks. But to one veteran jumper, this is a sport that will never, by its very nature, neatly lend itself to prime time. “The accident rate is a natural deterrent,” says Oklahoma geologist Mark Herndon, 40, who logged 100 leaps in the 1980s but packed away his parachute after his son was born. Plus, he says, “Illegal is nice because it keeps the riffraff away.”

Search and Revenue

Injured mountaineers find themselves in the crosshairs of cost-cutting lawmakers

SIXTY-ONE-YEAR-OLD Georgian climber Lev Sarkisov was not thinking of his pocketbook last June as he cradled his broken ribs. Having taken a 20-foot fall on Mount McKinley’s West Buttress route, he watched the approaching U.S. Army Chinook helicopter sent to pluck him from a camp at 14,200 feet. Like the 13 other climbing parties that had to be rescued from McKinley that season, Sarkisov was more concerned with getting the hell off the mountain than with the $13,294 the National Park Service and U.S. Army were spending to save him. But a report commissioned by Congress and scheduled for release this August may have future McKinley climbers checking their credit lines before strapping on their crampons.


Since 1998, when two Brits were choppered off the summit to the tune of $221,818, Alaska Republican Senator Frank Murkowski has argued that evacuating injured climbers from the slopes of McKinley is an unfair burden to taxpayers. Public Law 106-486, authored by Murkowski and signed into law last November, requires the Park Service to suggest ways to recover the costs of emergency evacuations. The new congressional report may recommend that climbers be forced to carry insurance and agree to foot the cost of potential bailouts–which could serve as a precedent for adopting similar practices in other rescue hot spots such as Washington’s Mount Rainier and Northern California’s Mount Shasta.
Mike Gauthier, chief climbing ranger for Mount Rainier National Park, contends that alpinists on McKinley are being unfairly picked on. Of the 1,200 people who attempt McKinley each year, an average of 11 require assistance, a small percentage of the 5,000 or so recreationists the Park Service extracts from the wilderness every year. “As a group, mountain climbers aren’t the most expensive to rescue,” says Gauthier, who points out that more money is spent on tracking down lost hikers. Not surprisingly, the idea that climbers should have to foot the bill for their helicopter ride home doesn’t sit well with the American Alpine Club. “If people think they’re paying for their rescue,” says executive director Charley Shimanski, “they tend to delay calling for help.”

Andrew McEwan

Meet the ruler of the nation’s gnarliest paddle sport

Wild thing: McEwan at the Potomac River near Seneca, Maryland, May 2001

Age: 21.
Hometown: Germantown, Maryland.
Years kayaking: 15.
Years “wildwater” racing, a sport that involves steep 20-mile runs down Class III+ rivers: six.
Odds someone will beat McEwan when he defends his title in the National Wildwater Championships on the Pigeon River in eastern Tennessee this month: near-zilch.
Reason McEwan keeps winning, according to teammate Chris Hipgrave: “He’s got a paddling gene the rest of us don’t.”
Length, in feet, of McEwan’s wildwater kayak, the Esox: 14.9.
Length, in feet, of the ’87 VW Golf he uses to cart it around: 13.5.
Width, in inches, of Crack in the Rock, the fastest channel on the Class V Upper Youghiogheny racecourse, where McEwan took first last year: 24.
Width, in inches, of the Esox: 23.6.
McEwan’s prerace nutritional regimen: a large Butterfinger and medium Heath Blizzard from Dairy Queen.
Why dominant European wildwater racers have it made, according to Middy Tilghman, 2nd ranked U.S. wildwater kayaker: “They’re sponsored, so they don’t have to work. They can lift weights, paddle, then just sit around playing video games.” Why McEwan can’t afford to sit around: “American paddlers get very little outside financing. We work to support ourselves.”
Why the work is worth it: “Wildwater is so dynamic. It’s kind of like downhill mountain biking, only the mountain is moving too.”

Loot

ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Essentials, To Go

Gear: The Kestrel 4000 Pocket Weather Tracker from Nielsen-Kellerman keeps you dialed in to ten meteorological must-knows, including temperature, wind speed and windchill, barometric pressure, humidity, and heat index. It’s like having Willard Scott in your pocket–minus all the babble. $329;

Video: From the boys who brought you the outrageous Kranked series comes the latest fat-tire masterpiece, Search for the Holey Trail. Watch as ballsy mountain bikers huck their way off buildings and cliffs in Morocco, Switzerland, Australia, Mexico, Spain, France, and Canada. $25;
Book: Alpinist Ed Webster chronicles his five-year tangle with the Goddess Mother in Snow in the Kingdom: My Storm Years on Everest. The self-published book includes an account of his oxygenless, unsupported ascent of the Kangshung Face in 1988. $30;

Web site: Readers of the newly minted Mtb Journal nominate for coverage news and gossip tidbits from across the singletrack universe. Though “reader-generated content”is a dotcom cliche, in this case it actually works.

Reverse Corps

A dam-happy federal agency begins undoing its own legacy

Just add concrete; Washington State’s Green River, circa 1915

“THIS IS STILL a viable river. It isn’t worth throwing away, really.” A few hundred yards from a Boeing factory and the truck-clogged Port of Seattle, Army Corps of Engineers biologist Patrick Cagney gazes over a stretch of the Green River. He’s admiring a newly constructed side channel full of woody snags that the Corps has installed next to a meat-processing plant in a $113 million effort to “rewild” the river. Cagney hopes the calm, debris-filled channel will provide a resting area for the fall salmon run. Like many urban waterways, the Green has been carefully sculpted over the years–the river has been straightened, diked, riprapped, and made into a well-behaved, navigable ditch. In short, the life has been engineered right out of it. But this summer, a century after the river was first overhauled, the agency that brought you the Snake River dams is attempting to breathe life back into an ecosystem it spent generations subduing.


And that’s just one example. Over the past two years Congress has authorized 50 restoration projects in 25 states, including funds to revive wetlands along the Ohio River and $1.4 billion to resuscitate the hydrology of the Everglades, putting the Corps, known primarily for building large-scale public-works projects, in the business of ecosystem rehabilitation. But enviros are cautious about entrusting habitat remediation to an agency often seen as an environmental bogeyman, especially after last year’s debacle in which the Corps cooked its books to gain support from lawmakers for a dubious $1 billion lock-widening project on the fragile upper Mississippi River. To Melissa Samet, senior director of a Corps-reform campaign at the conservation group American Rivers, some of what the agency labels restoration is plain old engineering. Nevertheless, she hopes that with guidance the Corps can create naturally self-sustaining ecosystems: “We’re making sure that what the Corps does with its restoration is real restoration.”

The Sweet Music of the Line

Saying good-bye to one of the nation’s greatest ski mountaineers

Saari in Peru, June 2000

ON THE MORNING OF May 8, ski mountaineer Hans Saari and photographer Kristoffer Erickson, Saari’s ski partner, hiked to the top of the Mont Blanc du Tacul for an attempt on the Gervasutti—a 3,000-foot couloir near Chamonix, France. Keen to put a new twist on the run, the two bypassed the usual entrance to the chute in favor of a steeper and more challenging route. A few turns down, Saari, in the lead, slipped on a hidden patch of ice, and then tumbled an estimated 1,500 feet.Despite the quick response of a rescue crew, he died of head trauma. He was 30.


A year before the accident, Saari and Erickson had skied another chute—this one in Montana. They’d dubbed it the Patriarch, in honor of the late Alex Lowe, their climbing partner and mentor, who had perished in an October 1999 avalanche on Tibet’s Mount Shishapangma. One of the nation’s premier ski mountaineers, Saari, a key player in ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø’s feature on the commercial and peer pressures of his sport, was also a talented writer. His lyrical account of that Montana descent could well serve as his epitaph. “To carve turns deliberately and skillfully down the throat of the peak from summit to base creates the line,” he wrote several months later. “The vibrancy of the line means everything. Like a cello, there is no sound until the string is taut. The more you struggle, the tighter the string, the greater the music.”

Smokey’s New Wheels

As another drought-fueled wildfire season looms over the West, a new 27-ton Tonka truck is set to roll into the flames

Inferno machine: the Proteus Fire Master

YOU’RE A FIRE boss, right? Well, step on over here and feast your eyes on this baby—the Proteus FireMaster, built right here in Missoula and ready for action anywhere you need ‘er. She’ll grab a burning pine, cut it down, give it a good soaking, and drop that bad boy on the safe side of your firebreak—all on a 35-degree slope! She’s also got a helicopter-refillable, 3,000-plus-gallon water tank, a telescoping water cannon, an eight-foot dozer blade, and a boom-mounted grapple claw and 18-inch bar saw.


Not sold yet? Hell, this puppy’s got—all standard features, y’understand—an onboard weather-radio system, outboard video cameras, CD player, air-conditioning, three escape hatches, GPS, and a fire-suppression system that’ll flood the engine compartment and hydraulics with halon gas at the touch of a button on the dash.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Wildfire fighting is about tactics,” you’re telling yourself. “That thing between my ears is called a brain, and that’s the most important tool out on the line—not some 27-ton, $350,000 behemoth.” But what you’ve got here is a mechanical army. Last summer, we rolled a Proteus prototype into the Lost Trail Fire, a resort operation right here in the Bitterroots. That burn was sure enough marching down the ski hill. A team went after it with Proteus and a fleet of helicopters, and we stopped it in its tracks.


Now, we both know things are gonna be bad this summer. Last year more than seven million acres went up across the country, and with the drought still hanging on, things aren’t looking much better this season. Hotshots are in short supply. Proteus here is the answer. Just sign this leasing agreement, and we’ll get you set up for just $475 an hour. Wait… Did I tell you about the optional undercoating?

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