Hi all !
Jerome, you hit the nail on the head! Wow, except for the jet-ski part, this was exactly what had happened !!!
Toby, tudo bem brother??
I am planning to go to Cumbuco in like January 5th - January 20th, do you think the winds are still going since I saw that in February they kind of die down? My wife wants to learn this sport as well and given the excellent experience I made there years ago, I do not want her to suffer the same fate as me here. As for the lady that treated me like this, ok, learned the lesson yesterday. I did ask around now a few guys (other kiters), one of which is kind of a legend in Guincho. Apparently this woman was expelled from Guincho because years ago, she sent new students into the waters with 30 kt winds and accidents happened (from the feedback I got from 4 kiters). Then, apparently the maritime police showed up and after accidents occurred she was never there (took some time off) so the cops that in Portugal take a day to show up (unlike in US where they are there minutes later), the cops started punishing other kite schools that have not even given instruction to new guys on such dangerous wind conditions...Basically, schools got together and expelled her from that beach.
I cannot be more specific because I do not want to give schools a bad name because the community is small, but people confirmed to me now what the deal is. As for the schools, here pretty much all offer courses where it must be paid prior or latest on first day, basically nobody teaches otherwise. I will give it one more shot because at least I got some money back now, so let's see, otherwise I'll just accept the fact that most schools here just want to what other kiters referred to as "IKO level 1 + 2 gold mine". I asked those guys how they learned kiting, they said they learned it among themselves, and of course the schools talk bad of them because they are not IKO certified etc, but so far the two schools I went to I had this bad experiences, so as you all can see, everybody kind of talks bad about everyone and I am caught in the middle. Yeah, will try it once more and then just do it out of the country...Just sad, I live 5 minutes from Guincho beach and each day I watch the guys kite and more and more feel depressed that I will probably take forever to be able to kite next to my own home.
Thx for the replies !