Sportif invited me to check out a possible new and secret speed location, what I found was a water sports heaven on Paradise Island. Without Google Earth I wouldn’t have had a clew where I was going, but the Internet revealed more than just the location, the wind stats were nothing less than amazing, week on week of 30knot plus winds interspersed with the occasional calm day.

The journey wasn’t short, two planes and one without a jet, but from first light we knew it was worth the wait. The volcanic island sits in a pool of crystal clear water that’s protected by a very healthy barrier reef. At first site it was hard to see where a speed course could lay, plus I started to hear the dreaded words “you should have been here yesterday”.

Anywhere else I would have been broken, but here it really felt like we were in paradise. I say we. Sally was with me; the last time we were on our own on holiday was our honeymoon twenty-three years ago, for once the points were starting to stack in my favour.

With only a hand full of small hotels the Island remains unspoilt by tourism, we found the best Island guide to be the taxi driver. As we passed what has to be the smallest prison I asked how much crime there was, he could only remember one, not bad for a twenty year old. The cells have sea views and are only occupied by teenagers who have succumb to their urges too early.

You’d be forgiven for thinking this was a French Island listening to the language, but apparently the schools teach all classes in English. A French man discovered the Island in the 1600, but it was under English rule before its independence.

Eighty percent of the population turned out to greet the Pope, but football is the Island true religion, at every turn you’ll find another set of goal posts. Everyone supports British teams, it’s Manchester United or Liverpool, not that the whole population could fill even half of either teams stadiums.

The beaches can be best described as empty, anywhere else in the world they’d have a hotel or be filled with sunbathers, but here there’s a strip of golden sand for everyone, yet they’re only a few minutes walk from the hotel. With the wind only returning on the last day we had time to find a few.

You can probably guess the out side world has had little influence; this is particularly noticeable when it come to communication. They have phones and a mobile network, not that we could send a text. Regular mail is probably quicker, the one computer I could find only had a few letters on the keyboard, and once you managed to type a readable email the connection was only at 24k. But shutting on a Sunday must be a first for the world wide web.

There was never an opportunity to test the course for real speed, I was also amazed where it was, only meters away from waves crashing, only protected by the reef which left the water is as flat as I’ve come across anywhere. The water is not only flat but shallow, too shallow for a normal sized free ride fin, the wind was too light for my speed kit and could only ride a free ride board with a 7.5.

The only chance I could test how smooth the water really was would be to use a kite, problem is I don’t kite surf. Having windsurfed the lagoon for an hour, I got a crash course in kitting, to start with it was crash more than kite, but an hour later the boat took a couple of other kite novices upwind closer to the reef while the experienced guys headed straight out from the hotel.

I would have said I was thrown in at the deep end, but we lunched off the boat a hundred meter down wind from the reef in waist deep water. It took some time, but eventually I had some grasp of what was going on and made ground upwind, but each time I got close to the good guys I get it all wrong, get slammed and dragged back down wind.

I also found out why they said to where shoes, the bottom in sharp corral wind spiky sea eurchens, despite the rubber my feet still ended up looking more like a scrubbing brush. When my arms started to get the same look I was about ready to give up, but then I figured out how the de-power worked.

When I finally made it to the others it was clear the course has a huge potential for some great speed, it should be possible to break the open sea record at least, if you’re brave enough, that is. The water wasn’t much more than thirty centimetres deep, great if you don’t fall, but at forty-four knots it could be interesting.

A spring tide would be more than enough to make it a gower. But the kites also have another another course at the bottom of the Island. There’s a sand bank that stretches for miles, too shallow to windsurf but with its sandy bottom it should give the kite fraternity a day or two to remember.

As the sun set our trip was over, just to pack and fly home. Would I go back, sure, it could be the perfect place to learn and its immaculate playground is ideal for any freeride, or freestyler, and it definitely a kiters paradise