SAFAGA
SAFAGA – Red Sea. General skills
The Red Sea is an improving free-rider’s mecca. Tide-less with no rig munching shorebreaks, it’s like a huge benign pond – but a pond that boasts over 250 days a year of winds over force 4.
Safaga is currently my favourite spot for Red Sea clinics.It not only offers wonderful planing conditions straight off the beach from the Club Ion – but you can reach out to the azure waters off Tobia island.
Conditions
Reefs and headlands which also provide some of the best snorkelling and diving in the world, also produce classic training lagoons or ‘gybe-atoriums’ as we like to call them.
Further away from the shore, rolling swells give the more ambitious a chance to lift their heels. You can get the odd sand storm but in April when I run the clinic the typical wind is 15-25 knots. Sometimes it can blow first thing in the morning so you have to be on your toes.
Kit
You rent from the ever efficient and friendly Club Ion with their vast range of Fantatic boards and SUPs and North rigs.
Accommodation
We stay in the classy, extensively equipped Imperial Shams Hotel right on site.
The journey
It’s an easy trip with direct flights from Manchester and Gatwick to Hurghada, which is less than an hour from the resort. The all-inclusive package makes this trip very good value.
Suggested minimum standard: planing in the harness on a sub 130 ltr board.