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

	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!

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!!

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!

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.

Not a bad kitespot, all in all

 

 

 

Initially we were going to try to write about the great three weeks we had cruising in the Grenadines, then on to Curacao via lots of open water, pirates who we didn’t see as they kindly decided not to attack us,  and some gorgeous atolls on the way…  but we were at loss for words so here are some pictures.

 

Juergen jumping over sandspits, no kite!

 

James in action, Clifton Harbour, Union, Grenadines

 

Caroline’s own personal sail – somewhere in the Western Caribbean.

 

Grateful Captain joins the Dead

James and friend/hat, Tobago Cays, Grenadines

http://vimeo.com/25315067

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

A recent guest on Zenith Ocean Voyages suggested that people might like to know if the forecast’s good a few days before one of our scheduled trips – as long as it’s not fully booked – so that they can book last-minute knowing that the wind’s pretty much guaranteed. So we thought we’d give this service a try… if you’d like to be on our mailing list for last-minute wind alerts, let us know here, indicating “last-minute wind alerts” in the subject matter. Cheers!

 

We’re in St Lucia in between trips, Ged’s busy editing videos (check out the T8 Guadeloupe video here – the T9a vid of our first trip in the Grenadines is also on its way…) and I’ve been doing the usual cleaning and marketing stuff. Felt in need of a break yesterday, so I rented a car and went for a random drive on the island. St Lucia continues to surprise me. The richness and colours of this island get better and more interesting  the more time I spend here. Here are some pictures I took in Anse La Raye, a little town on the west coast between Castries and Soufriere.

 

 

 

Pumpkinseller

Get ready for some serious persecution…

Subliminal advertising, Lucian style.