Madagascar is a country of contrasts, heading deep into the far north to a deserted island Rou Chater and the F-ONE Team went hoping to find waves, but discovered so much more!

Rou Chater heads out to a remote spot in Northern Madagascar to explore a new kitesurfing spot that has hardly been touched. Will it be windy, will there be waves, who knows? On this trip, Raphael Salles and the team lay all their cards on the table with a once in a lifetime adventure…

When you get an invite to go to a far-flung place like Madagascar, it's a simple decision, cancel everything else and get on the plane. There are spots in the world that I can easily take and leave. However, the wild, remote and rugged nature of this incredible country always entices me in.

My last visit here was way back in 2008 when F-One launce the Bandit Dos, eleven years later and I was keen to head back and see what had changed. During that first trip, we stayed near the infamous Flame Balls break in the South West in a small area known as Anakao.

I have fond memories from that trip, the wind didn't play ball, and the wave was fickle, but when it came together on the last day, it was a few hours of kiting that has been etched onto my brain forever. I still talk fondly about it with Raphael all these years later.

Last year the F-One team went back for the tenth anniversary of that trip, and I was watching the film they produced with a touch of envy. 2019, it seemed, would be my chance to revisit one of the most enchanting places on the planet. Maybe I'd even get to see a lemur or two!

This time, I was given minimal information about the trip; it was all top secret as F-ONE didn't want to give too much away. All I knew was that we would be heading to the North East, travelling to Diego Suarez, before heading off to a remote island to kite where not many people been before.

I've always been keen to explore with a kite, back in the day my brother and I would continuously ride new spots around our area hunting out good waves and flat water and feeling a little like pioneers at being the first to kite certain spots. It's a desire that has stuck with me, but with the gravy train of kite events following a seemingly rigid schedule, it's hard to get to new spots.

Any trip to Madagascar from Europe generally involves some effort; it's why it isn't as wildly popular as some of the kite spots on the map. I think in total it took three days to get from my front door to the final destination, but I lost count of the airports, planes and hours that passed.

Madagascar is a real country of contrast, the poverty here I found shocking when I first visited all those years ago. The average wage is 30 euros a month, and that's if you are lucky enough to have a job. Tourism is becoming a massive boom for a country that's traditionally fallen foul of the "rape and pillage" attitude of the "developed world" to many African countries.

The tourism boom is mostly thanks to the film industry, although if you travel here expecting to see a host of wild animals and King Julian with a gecko called Stevie on his crown then prepare to be disappointed. Landing in Antananarivo the culture shock is almost instant. From the luxury of spending 12 hours in Marseille surrounded by creature comforts to Madagascar's biggest transport hub is quite a stark contrast, and that's an understatement.

After some fun and games with the bags, we manage to convince the airport staff that 18 huge board bags and half a ton of camera gear will fit on the plane. Who knows what we'll see at the other end of the trip and whether they will load it, but that's half the fun of heading somewhere like this.

The internal flight to Diego Suarez is an experience, the small plane takes us over the mountains, and the scenes out of the window of vast wilderness expanse can't help but stoke your heart.  We stop for a night in the town and enjoy a hot meal that isn't being served in a plane or an airport for the first time in what feels like a while.

Our final trip to Nosy Ankao and the Time and Tide resort of Miavana involves a rare treat for me, a helicopter rider. I'll be honest, I have spent all my life with a mild fascination of these incredible machines, and before we had even pumped a kite up, I was about to fulfil a life long dream. We had great fun winding up Matt Maxwell who let on he had a fear of flying, the grom of the trip as ever fulfilling his duties perfectly.

Arriving in Nosy Ankao after Diego you are hit by the contrast once again, here we are in a luxury resort, while just down the road there is a village made of sticks and shacks. Time and Tide manage the island and have several villas, a gym, restaurant and bar. It's a high-end getaway for the well to do, but they have also taken on a conservation role and some employment of the locals too.

The goal at Time and Tide has always been to give something back, whether that is monitoring and helping the turtle population, managing the fishing areas or providing schooling for the local children. Having flown over some incredible breaks were all keen to see the island's potential, but while we took a shortcut with the chopper, the equipment was on a slow boat and won't be there until the evening.

A quick decision leads to us exploring the island on quad bikes, and it does not disappoint, there are stunning beaches at every turn. Incredible fauna and flora with wild birds everywhere and the odd chameleon strolling along and even a few snakes lurking in the bushes. No lemurs though…

Heading up to the lighthouse gives us a 360-degree view of the place, and there are some promising looking waves off the North East coast. Sadly for this trip, the swell forecast wasn't all time, but as soon as the kit arrived, we headed out to see what the island had to offer.

After three days of travelling, tucking into some sunset swells with Mitu, Brandon and Max was a real treat. We found a fun gap in the reef with some solid swell delivering 3-4 turns, we were powered on 8m kites, and it was so refreshing after being cooped up on planes that I ended up staying till the very last drops of sunshine fell from the sky.

Just over a kilometre from the launch spot, we had found a fun wave to play on, and this was only day one. I wondered if anyone else had ridden this wave, as it turned out we were probably among first. The manager at Time and Tide, Rosco Wendover kitesurfs and has been riding solo on his own over the last couple of years that he has been on the island.

Before that, a couple of French guys had come here when there was just the local village and kited some of the bays, I can't say for sure, but I like to think we pioneered this wave spot. Pioneering would be a theme for the rest of the trip! On our first full day, a handful of us headed out to the reefs to hunt out new wave spots.

Mitu and Max were tasked with shooting strapless freestyle in the lagoon, which left the swells wide open for us to play. The reef on the north-west coast of Nosy Ankao is literally a playground waiting to be discovered. However, there was an element we hadn't quite factored in, the wind. This area of Madagascar is notoriously windy.

We asked the locals how often it was like this and they said every day. By this, I mean 35knots plus. We'd packed a load of small kites, but when a 7m is stacked, and there are just a handful of 5's and 6's we fell foul of perhaps underestimating just what a wind machine this place was.

One thing about being stacked though is you can fly upwind, and that's where we headed, checking the reefs along the way for potential wave spots. We found a place up the coast that had a substantial gap in the reef and some bigger swells peeling through, it was fun to ride, and the swell was deceptively large on the sets. Dropping into some big bombs this far away from civilisation was an excellent way to get the heart pumping.

Not only were we a long way from the resort, but we were also a long way from anywhere, even on the mainland there was nothing around, a chopper ride was the only quick way to get any medical attention, and that was dubious in Diego Suarez at best.

Fortunately, these weren't barrelling bombs but more lumbering giants that allowed you in with welcome arms. Titu and Micka played for a while as Raph stalked up and down still hunting for something better. In the end, the boys headed further upwind to a small beach on the island of Nosy Manampao with crystal clear water and sand as white as the driven snow!

We found a perfect section of flat water with a long sand spit sticking out, we'd discovered an ideal freestyle spot, but we hadn't come across that immaculate wave just yet. Still, it was only the first day; time was on our side!

We were so far upwind a joint decision was made without even thinking about it; it was time to become the first people to circumnavigate the island. We wouldn't know if we were the first until we confirmed it with Rosco, but we set off anyway!

The wind was really howling as we rounded the small island of Nosy Ratsy, I'm sure you can guess why it was called that. Rosco told us that bonafide pirates live there who steal the turtle eggs and also the turtles and in fact anything that isn't tied down. There had even been raiding parties to the village on Nosy Ankao in years gone by.

We found a fun little spot on the eastern corner of the island; the rock formations had been eroded by the wind to create stone barrels that you could tuck into on the kite. Heading further round on Nosy Ankao, we kited through the mangroves in Lighthouse Bay.

A spot that looked great from the lighthouse the day before turned out to be gusty, and while picturesque, perhaps not the spot we thought it would be. As we rounded the western point of the island, another freestyle spot showed itself, with wild dead trees littering the beach it would provide a perfect backdrop for some shots.

As we came round the top of the island the inevitable happened, the wind turned extremely gusty, while Nosy Ankao is relatively flat, it still created a huge wind shadow.  Working at keeping the kites in the sky Raph, Titu, Mick and I made it back to the spit where we had launched that morning.

To say I was sunburnt was an understatement. In our excitement at a new spot, we had covered just over 30 miles and spent 2.5 hours baking in the African sun while getting blasted by the howling wind!

The following days took a similar pattern, Mitu and Max on photo duty while we explored the surrounding area looking for places to ride. We covered some distance and found lots of great spots, but there was never a light bulb moment when we discovered another One Eye.

We rode downwind as far as the eye could see to rendezvous with a boat to get back to the beach. We visited the freestyle spit on Nosy Manampao numerous times; we organised a jetski shoot at one of the bigger wave spots only for one of the skis to break down outside the reef. This resulted in a kiters rescuing skis situation as the spare ski tried to tow the stricken one over the reef. 

We outran the mother of all storms at sunset as the sky turned black and we hot-footed it the 6miles downwind to the resort with Mother Nature throwing everything she could at us as we tried to outrun her. Madagascar is a country of contrasts, make no mistake.

While we may not have found the most perfect waves on the planet, we did discover windy lagoons perfect for freeriding and freestyle. The waves were good too, just not all-time, which was a shame. One thing they weren't was crowded though and with just us to play on them I'd take that over a hectic session at One Eye any day of the week.

The wind though was relentless, while Nosy Ankao might not be a realistic destination for many of you reading this, spots like Babaomby and Saklava Bay are well within reach of any kitesurfer, These spots get that same trade wind that we were lucky enough to enjoy, and rest assured it blows, day and night for non stop from March to November!

It's not every day you get to ride spots that have never been kited before, and it can't be long before that becomes an impossible dream. While the effort was huge, the rewards were endless, Madagascar once again blew me away and the next chance I get to go I'll be jumping on it!

A huge thanks to Rosco Wendover at Time and Tide Miavana for hosting us, and a special mention to Chloe Scamps from F-One for organising the trip of a lifetime, I won't be forgetting it in a hurry!

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Forty Eight Hours In Madagascar
By Rou Chater
Rou has been kiting since the sports inception and has been working as an editor and tester for magazines since 2004. He started IKSURFMAG with his brother in 2006 and has tested hundreds of different kites and travelled all over the world to kitesurf. He's a walking encyclopedia of all things kite and is just as passionate about the sport today as he was when he first started!

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