Windsurfing in Hurghada, Egypt.

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The first thing you notice as you circle over the sea with the plane preparing to land, is that the Red Sea is definitively not red. Whoever came up with this idea must have had too much red wine…. The second thing you notice is the whitecaps, plenty of them. The deep blue, green in the shallow areas, expanse of water is covered with these little sheep, all running downwind, but never seemingly getting anywhere. From above, the seas, the desert, even the tiny little people windsurfing seem perfect.As the plane lands and taxies to the terminal, the excitement level rises a notch, only to climb sharply again as we step onto the tarmac and feel the sauna like heat attack us with relentless power, driven by the wind.

As we drive to the hotel, we notice the barbed wire fences of the airport are covered with multi colored plastic bags stuck at different heights, another good sign. On one side, the desert, hot, arid, unfriendly, lifeless, derelict buildings, not at all like the scenery from the plane: no sand dunes in this area, just hard, caked sand. Even the hills (mountains?) in the background are just a darker shade of beige, sometimes almost black, over backed, as if someone had left the oven on for too long. On the other side, green, blue water (definitively not red…), palm trees, grass, cacti, buzzing with activity, a hotel being constructed here, another being renovated there, life, as it is almost everywhere else. We arrive at our hotel, by this time the wind has died down, go through all the check-in procedures and drop our luggage in our "Bungalow" and head for the beach to find the windsurfing center and organize our gear for the next 2 weeks, maybe even get some sailing in, as, arriving at the beach we realize it's still blowing quite hard, the hotel buildings were just shading us.

It takes us a while to orient ourselves and we finally find the Tommy Friedl Pro Center. Unfortunately it is closed (ok, in our excitement we didn't realize that it is 19h00, local time (Egypt is 1 hour ahead of Central European time). The area is empty, but there are rows upon rows of boards, and pre rigged sails everywhere, for us never having been on a windsurfing holiday, the place is paradisiacal. Instead of sailing, we just head out to the sea and enjoy the warm, yet refreshing, greenish crystal water, the sun setting over the hills in the background, igniting the sky with different hues of red and orange. The should have called this place the Red Sky, not the red Sea…….

The surf center in the evening light

We have dinner, enjoy the activities organized by the hotel, and finally go back to our bungalow, anxious about the coming dawn: Will it prove to fulfill the promises of the day just past?
A not so early rise (why not, we're on vacation….) promised a great day as at around 9h00 the wind was already blowing quite hard. We had breakfast, not hurrying thinking that thermal winds usually get stronger in the afternoon when the temperature is at its maximum, we headed of the surf station and organized everything that needed to be organised and finally got our boards and sails and hopped on the water. The wind had died down, but was still quite good (5.2m). I started off going not so far just to check things out, scope the area around, make sure my sail is not too big etc… after a few minutes, I realized that the wind seemed to be calming down and very gusty, it was hard to keep a plane all the way back to the beach on the last straight and I got back to wait around for the wind to pick up again. As it turned out, the wind didn't pick up again that day, despite the promises of the people working there. At around 17h00 the wind did come back to a decent force, but was very irregular and it didn't last very long.

So it turns out that in Hurghada, the wind is stronger in the morning where it is side-offshore, and then turns around 11h00 to become side-onshore and lessens down a bit, with a bit of a revival around 17h00. We spent 14 days, of which only 2 were really good (4.1m and 4.7m) a few of them, maybe 4, were good (5.8-6.2) and unfortunately too many of them where it would have been good with a 7.4-8.0m sails. These sails are available at the surf station, but I didn't bother.

Kitesurfing: For kitesurfing, the wind conditions were good, from what I see they can have a lot of fun when the wind is not strong enough for windsurfing. Many people tried it, as the surf center gives lessons.

The bay area for kitesurfing.