Day 11: Atins Big Wave session and trip to São Luís

Day 11 was planned to be a "travel day", but for a few members of the team the temptation was too big to launch the kites for a short morning session prior departure to Sao Luis.

Upon arrival in Atins, at the end of day 9, the boat that brought us from the mainland to the island dropped us off at the leeward side of the island because the captain said the waves in front of the pousada were too big!

In the early morning od day 11, the wind was still howling and the tide was just right for one more session on the surfboards. The waves were the biggest of the entire trip: an unreal experience to be riding such nice waves at the end of such a long trip along the coast.

As you can see on the images below this area changes shape all the time. The sand bank moves quite quickly and the island also changes shape: the beach in front of the pousada was also 20m wider in the past.

The red lines show the actual track from the GPS tracker during the day, with an old picture on the back ground.

The picture above shows the sandbanks have moved, but the waves are still in the same place (more or less).

The session resulted in 22 KM in 1 hour and at 11:30 the boat was ready to take us of the island again to start our journey to São Luís. On the picture below you can see us gathering on the beach with all lugguage, waiting for the boat to pick us up to bring us to the other side of the river.

The drive to São Luís took five hour, passing swaps, long stretched Brazilian countryside’s and little inland villages. Since the previous 800 km were all travelled along the coastline by kite it was quite exciting to see more of the Brazilian scenery, for others it was time for a magnum ice-cream and to recover from the physical impact the Kite trip had.

Once arrived in São Luís it was already late and time for diner on the beach, a little Caipirinha and a modest party to celebrate the almost accomplished 800 KM. Enjoying the party but bearing in mind that the last downwinder of 7 Km still needed to be travelled along the beach of São Luís.