Category Archives: Summer

Paragliding Cape Town

Paragliding Signal Hill

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One of the best activities a visitor or local can do in Cape Town on a calm day is to paraglide off Signal Hill or Lion’s Head. There are a ton of paragliding operators and you can constantly see their shuttle vehicles dropping off and picking up their guests and instructors. Check in with them to see who suits your timing with their availability.

Where you launch from depends on the wind direction of the day. If you launch from Lion’s Head you get to enjoy the beautiful Camps Bay below you and you will land on a safe grassy field just to the right of the beach. If the wind is more northerly, you may launch from Signal Hill which will take you over the homes of Sea Point and Fresnaye. The gorgeous Table Bay will stretch out before you filled with all the ships coming into the harbor. If you launch from Signal Hill you will land on the popular Sea Point Promenade. It is a beautiful free use space filled with walkers, runners, cyclists, skateboarders, roller bladders, artists, families and groups of people playing soccer or frisbee.

The Promenade has become a focal point in Cape Town, with lots of artistic sculptures dotting the grassy sidewalks which have sometimes caused controversy as good art can. Sometimes it was the protesters defacing the art which caused more discussion than the actual art pieces themselves, so you have to ask yourself who are the actual artists here.

When paragliding for the first time you will be taken by an instructor on a tandem paraglider. You will just be able to sit back and relax, even though you may be terrified, and enjoy the view and the feeling of flight. If you have a brave heart ask the pilot to take you on some steep turns. This will definitely get the blood pumping and the butterflies in your stomach swirling.

Paragliding companies make their money from running multiple flights while to conditions are good, so do not expect a very long flight. Good companies will give you your monies worth, although everyone will tell you that the conditions were just too light to have a longer flight.

If you are visiting Cape Town, definitely make sure you take some time to fly off one of her beautiful mountain and land next to the ocean.

Cabrinha-Kitesurfing-Lessons-Cape-Town

Learning to Kitesurf

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We live in Cape Town where it is really windy. Especially in Summer. The wind blows so much it even has a name. We call it the Cape Doctor because it cleans up the seas and the skies. Whenever it is windy you can see hundreds of people kitesurfing Cape Town. So we decided we would take some lessons to learn how to do it, stay safe and start joining the fun.

There are a lot of kitesurfing schools in Cape Town and it can be hard to choose which one to use. We took the advise of a friend who kite surfs and went with Cabrinha Kiteboarding which we were told is the best school in the city. They have been around since 1999 and use the best equipment to ensure students learning safety. This was a very important concern for us as we have heard some stories about people getting injured while trying to teach themselves.

Our lessons were going to be broken up into a few parts. The first lesson would be on the beach in Big Bay where the shop is situated. In the first lesson we met our instructor Morne and headed down to the beach. We learned all the safety tips and theory in order to keep us safe while learning and then we started to fly a small kite on the beach, so that we could learn the skills needed to fly the bigger “real” kites. The tie we flew was called a foil kite and only three metres long. Even with that small kite you could feel how much power it generated. It was lots of fun and pretty soon we were both doing loops and figure of 8s.

We really wanted to get going with our new kitesurfing career so we did a double lesson on our first day. After we had mastered the small kite we learnt how to set up the bigger kites. The kite we set up was 6m long, so double the size of the training kite. The bigger kites need to be pumped up to hold their shape and allow them to float on water. It is good to know that even though you crash the kite in the sea it won’t sink.

Once we knew how to pump it up and set up our controlling lines, we started practicing take offs and landings, as this is one of the most dangerous time while kitesurfing. We spent a lot of time here to make sure we were experts and getting off the beach and returning.

Once we were comfortable with this skill we started the same flying skills we had mastered with the small kite with the big kite. Because we had mastered the control skills before, it all came really quickly and we never felt scared or unsafe. We practiced flying the kite on the left, and then the right, and then we started dipping the kite into the power zone where you start generating pull. We got dragged down the beach a bit each time we made a turn. it was great and you could really start to feel how the kite can pull you through the water.

We ended off the lesson by learning how to rescue ourselves from the water if we crash and cannot relaunch our kite.

Next time we will be putting on our wetsuits and heading into the water for what is called body dragging. We are having so much fun so far and we have not even seen the board yet.

If you are looking to start kiteboarding I would definitely recommend Cabrinha Kiteboaridng for kitesurfing lessons in Cape Town.