So Zenith has rocked up in the ABCs for our final leg of the 2011 season. Why here? This is the only consistently windy place in the Caribbean at this time of year, and free of hurricanes – so safe for Meercat and the crew.
With some downtime before the next guests arrive, Zenith has hooked up with the Naish crowd in Bonaire. The local kiters here are like a big family and yet very welcoming. It’s a joy to see and to experience. Spots like ‘Atlantis’ and Klein Bon’ are the major haunts. Super flat water, offshore winds and ice coolers packed with Polar beer is the order of the day. There seems to be an unusually high proportion of female kiters here, and they don’t hold back on the water.
| Up-coming star Judith Roetman works out in the gym, kites before AND after work. After just a few days of testing the Torch, she fell in love. We ve been back now for 12 days…she still has it !!!!!! Hmmmm this is going to be a tough one… Watch out for her in the near future |
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Jeroen is the local Naish rep. He started kiting 8 years ago, and like the old skool loves the big air. He is the center of kiting here in Bon’ If you ever land on these shores be sure to hook up with him. His bar tricks are hilarious: get your game head on if you are game enough! |
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After a few jars in the Little Havana Bar Jeroen and I decided to make a trip to the Los Aves islands, whip up a few local kiters to demo our 2011 Naish gear, and make a movie. I was in full filming mode, and the Aves provided perfect conditions for the demo. I should remember to get some kiting in myself at some point….
It never fails to touch me that when Zenith sails to new places, we discover great kiting communities, meet the kiters and it just clicks.
Our sport, passion whatever it is, binds us together. It’s weeks like this that make me proud to be a part of what we all do.
Oh by the way – keep an eye out for the vid, Judith is something else!!
Got anything better to do from September 8 to the 15, 2011? No? Why not come and join Zenith Ocean Voyages on a great 8 day, 7-night kiteboarding trip, starting from Bonaire (Netherlands Antilles) and ending in Curacao? We’ll be kiting in Bonaire, on Klein Curacao and in some secret spots along the way (or not…)
There are two double cabins still available.
T21 is the final trip of our first successful season. We are celebrating this by extending a special gift to all of our guests on this trip: a 10% discount voucher on any trip in our second season (December 20, 2011 – July 15, 2012). If you want to, you can give the voucher to your friends!
If you’d like to ride with us on T21 and take advantage of the special offer, please book by August 31, 2011.
To find out more or to book, please write us an email by clicking here. Don’t forget to mention the special T21 offer. Looking forward to welcoming you onboard Meercat!
Our program for the December 2011 – July 2012 season is now ready!
Here are the links to the all-new Destinations and Rates and Dates pages.
We’re still working on the Booking Enquiries page… if you’d like to book, please click here! We’d recommend booking early to get the most choice. Also, if you book before 1 October 2011, you’ll get a discount of USD 150 per person.
Looking forward to riding with you onboard Meercat!
Ged & Susy and the Zenith Ocean Voyages crew
WHAT’S NEW FOR SEASON 2 AT ZENITH OCEAN VOYAGES – Dec 2011 – July 2012
For our second season here at Zenith Ocean Voyages, we’ve decided to do things a little bit differently as far as our scheduling is concerned. Here are the highlights, in a nutshell:
Our calendar
- In short, it’s all about flexibility and custom trips.
- Depending on the time of year, we’ll be in one of four different cruising grounds. Some of these represent the best of what we experienced in 2011, some are brand-new adventurous explorations.
- Within each cruising ground, YOU CHOOSE YOUR DATES.
- Within each cruising ground, you can choose your itinerary – although we will advise you on how to make the most of your trip based on the intended length, your starting and ending point, etc.
- YOU CHOOSE THE LENGTH OF YOUR TRIP. In principle, for a minimum of 7 days (guess what though… we are flexible).
- We are still working on our new booking enquiry page. While we finalise it, all links to that page have been temporarily redirected to our Contact page.
- First come first serve – the earlier you book, the more choices you will have. Once a trip is booked by at least 1 person, we will publish the dates so that others can join and we will indicate it’s no longer available once all cabins are filled.
- The Special End-of-Year trip is somewhat different. YOU CHOOSE not only the dates and the length, but the cruising ground as well! The only limitations are December 20, 2011 as the earliest possible starting date and January 2, 2012 as the latest possible end date.
Our rates
- … are still all inclusive – just get yourself to the boat and we’ll take care of the rest!
- The package comes with our unique our much-praised personal kitefilm of your trip. To take a look at the videos from Season 1, check out http://vimeo.com/channels/191285
- If you’re traveling on your own, or if you’d like a cabin all to yourself, please contact us to find out about our special single-occupancy offers.
- Bookings made before 1 October 2011 will receive a discount of USD 150 per person.
- If you would like a custom trip that’s not quite 7 days or 10 days long, no worries. You will be charged on a pro-rata basis up to the 11th day. From then onwards, the daily price drops to USD 300 pp/day.
Trips in Summer 2011
We are currently in the ABCs. If you’d like to come onboard, please contact us, indicating your preferred dates. We are flexible and our 2011 rates will apply.
… and here’s a little light non-kiting vid (for a change!), created this morning on Day 8 of the now-extended T14 trip in the Grenadines (and beyond, it’s looking like… stay tuned!).
http://vimeo.com/25315067
A recent guest of ours, Chris, wrote a very rich and detailed review of his experience onboard Meercat on the Zenith Ocean Voyages T11 trip in the Grenadines.
The review is published on the German forum at www.oase.com and has lots of pictures too. If you can read German, or if you don’t and just want to look at the nice pics, click here. For an English translation (done by Susy as faithfully as she could…), click here.
Thanks Chris, much appreciated 
A quick update from Grenada, where we’re getting “Meercat” ready for another trip starting this Friday. On Sunday we finished our T10 trip in the Grenadines, with Elena and Alex. It was good fun, and we’re happy to report that our new kitesurfing instructor/crew member James Gardiner not only survived it but got the hang of Zenith Ocean Voyages completely – despite his jet lag and metrosexual tendencies!
Here’s two pics taken on the last day anchored just behind Happy Island - the group picture at the bottom is a kind contribution from Alex himself, a published photographer. Thanks Alex, much appreciated (we’re looking forward to seeing the rest of your creations).
James and Alex off the trampoline
- It was a laugh… thanks Elena and Alex
| Back to prepping the boat ready (not to mention the by-now-customary supermarket hunt for chicken breasts…) There’s a nice breeze blowing and we can’t wait to be back on the water again. |
We couldn’t say it at the time ’cause we’d been sworn to secrecy but yes, that’s what Florian, Dom and Nate were doing onboard back in late February/early March. Creating Episode Four of Naish Kiteboarding TV, which was released a couple of days ago. If you haven’t seen it yet, you’re weird, but anyway here it is:
Naish Kiteboarding TV Episode Four: Boat Trip to Antigua
It’s also embedded in our gallery of course.
There’s a few shots missing, which we think should be included in a special end-of-the-year outtakes/extras/crashes/bleeps/blunders episode. For example, whatever happened to Florian’s bikini session? The epic timelapse at Green Island? Ged the captain getting nervous and fluffing his lines during his intervie? Dom catching a huge fish? etc. etc. Note to Nate (try saying that quickly) – it must have been hard to condense 8 intense fun-filled days to less than 10 minutes… Good job man.
As for the color of the water, no it wasn’t photoshopped – come onboard and check for yourself.
