Ten Questions: Blake Olsen
Issue 77 / Mon 14th Oct, 2019
Blake Olsen has an interesting tale to tell, he grew up on the Red Sea in the desert of Saudi Arabia, then taught himself to kiteboard and never looked back!
Brought up around the Red Sea and the desert of Saudi Arabia, Blake Olsen caught the travel bug at a very young age. A self-taught kiteboarder, adventurer and traveller, Blake had loads of stories to share when he caught up with Jen Tyler from IKSURFMAG. Check out the full interview, right here!
Blake, it's great to catch up with you, finally! You've been on the road a lot this summer - can you share with us some of the countries you've visited, and what you were up to!
Hey Jen, great catching up with you as well! It's been a fantastic year filled with loads of travelling and adventures! Hilary and I have been to quite a few places this year including Qatar, Oman, Vietnam, Philippines, Canada, Jamaica, Cayman Islands, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Spain, and Morocco, to name a few!
You moved around quite a bit growing up, what was that like?
Yes, growing up, we did move around quite a bit as a family. My brother and I were born and raised in Saudi Arabia. My parents were teachers at international schools, both windsurfers and very adventurous people. We got to know the Kingdom well and explored it at every opportunity. We would go camping, windsurfing, fishing, snorkelling, spearfishing, rock climbing, arrowhead hunting, sandboarding, exploring, meeting remote local villages, and seeing things you can't even imagine! Saudi is a beautiful country, filled with friendly, hospitable people that will go out of their way to help you and treat you like family.
We lived a life filled with travel and adventure at an early age. As I get older, I realise that it is not as common as I thought, and it has given me a different perspective on the world as a whole. I am trying, through kiteboarding camps and videos, to take people out of their comfort zones to destinations around the world, helping them see new cultures and introducing them to the incredible diversity and beauty this big world has to offer.
Do you think growing up in countries like Saudi Arabia engraved the travel-bug in you? Or do you prefer staying in one place?
Oh, absolutely! There is no way I would be travelling as much as l am today if it were not for my upbringing. My parents didn't travel in the sense of going on a holiday; they went on adventures! They would acquire GPS coordinates from their F-16 pilot friends and try to find different mountains, beaches or valleys, and every weekend we had somewhere new to explore!
The reason I left Key West is that I was feeling too comfortable with my life. My Dad would always say, "If you are bored, you are boring" and that has stuck with me to this day. Growing up over there, my brother and I never watched TV, played video games, or even listened to music. It wasn't until we moved back to the States that we were introduced to all of that, but it never interested us as much as being outside.
Rumour has it that you taught yourself to kiteboard, how and when did that happen?
That is correct. I ended up teaching myself how to kiteboard during high school. We moved stateside to my parents' hometown of Alpena in northern Michigan. It took years of begging my parents to let me learn to kiteboard after they had witnessed kitemares in Maui and heard horror stories from their windsurfing friends. They bought me a 1.5m trainer kite in 2002, and I was a master when it came to flying after nearly seven years. I took matters into my own hands and started saving money for a kite. I had to drive an hour and a half to Tawas, which was the nearest place that offered lessons.
One way I raised money was by setting up a cup in the school store and would do backflips for a dollar!
When I finally had saved enough for a lesson, there was no wind, and I wasn't prepared to do another 350 backflips!
In the end, I taught myself to kiteboard in our backyard and had so many kitemares; I can hardly remember them all!
When did you first start working at MACkite, and what do you there? Have you always lived near the Florida Keys?
I moved to the Florida Keys in the winter of 2013 after a brutally cold polar vortex! I had never been to South Florida before. I started to ride for MACkite in the spring of 2017 while I was living down in Key West, Florida. My friend Nathan Patterson, who has been a long-time employee at MACkite asked me if I wanted to join the team, and it was on from there.
Ryan Goloversic (Rygo) the team manager and video editor for MACkite came down to Key West with Nathan after a dealer meeting, and Rygo asked if I would do some tutorial videos for the shop's YouTube channel. I agreed, and that is how "Ride with Blake" started. Being a newbie to video blogs, just like learning to kite, took a lot of trial and error before feeling comfortable talking to a camera and making that style of video.
We released a video every Tuesday for 47 weeks straight until it wasn't possible to get him footage anymore. We were living in Vietnam at that time, and the WIFI was too slow to transfer large video files. We took our first break and came back more ready than ever!
We need to ask - you have earned the reputation as being "The Destroyer," destroying everything, including boards, kites, harnesses, and your body! Has this always been the case? Can you share a couple of gnarly stories with us?
Haha! I guess you could say that it has always been this way: however, I am getting better with the not breaking myself part of it. I did get my first sponsorship when I was 17 by breaking someone's board though! He had bought it that day at Kitty Hawk Kites and thought I would like it. I took it for a spin out and back and snapped it between my feet on a landing. I sheepishly came back to the beach to show this poor guy his new board. I was expecting him to be disappointed, but instead, he had a good laugh, invited me over for dinner and ended up sponsoring me for many years, we have been friends ever since!
I want to say that I have matured but still manage to break gear from time to time, especially hydrofoils!
One of the closest calls happened in my backyard in Northeast Michigan. It was a windy, snowy, mid-November's day in northern Michigan. I had a 6mm wetsuit with a hood, boots on my board and no gloves. The wind was sideshore and blowing strong with snow blowing sideways. My face was red, and my hands were numb, but I was used to riding in these conditions and didn't think much of it. As I was riding out, I unhooked and tried a handle pass, missed the handle, my leash snapped and I watched my kite fly away. The wind direction was blowing me parallel to the beach, and it would be miles before I would reach land. So I had to swim to shore cross current, and it took a long time to reach the beach with my body slowly failing. By the time I got to shore, my body was a deep purple and convulsing from the extreme cold. My fingers started to lock up, so much so that I couldn't use them to unstrap my boots. I had left the boots on to keep my feet warm, even though they probably would've been more useful for kicking. I had to use my teeth to unstrap the Velcro and tried to take deep breaths to calm the extreme convulsions. I was almost bouncing off the ground from the shivers and had quite a long way to go before making it home. I army crawled along the beach, stopping to bury my hands in the crusty, frozen, snow-covered sand before continuing. After what seemed like hours, I finally made it to the house, crawled through the yard, up the stairs and slid into the hot tub.
I remember waking up in darkness, in a hot and steamy place. It took me a minute to figure out where I was, under the hot tub cover face up luckily where I had passed out from shock. When my parents and brother got home from school, I asked them how their day was and continued, talking like nothing had happened. Years later, I shared that close encounter with them but didn't want them to worry about me.
What does your kite quiver consist of, and what is your favourite discipline?
My kites of choice for the past couple of years have been Cabrinha. This year I got a Moto, Switchblade, FX, and Contra. My favourite board is the Duotone Jaime Textreme, and for foiling, I like the Slingshot Ghost Whisper with the Dwarf Craft Micro. I also have the Liquid Force Galaxy board with the 60cm impulse Wing Set, which is excellent in the waves, while practising footwork, and for cruising in the shallows.
I'd say that my favourite discipline is Big Air because there's nothing quite like the feeling of flying high and getting horizontal. However, I enjoy it all and like to ride in just about anything!
How have your friends and family supported and influenced your riding?
I feel so grateful to have such supportive and uplifting family and friends. My parents instilled in my brother and me that being kind to strangers, always doing the right thing, and spending time outside are some of the essential things in life. Micah is my best friend, and adventure partner and my parents made sure that even though we lived overseas and moved around a lot, we always had each other. We learned how to have fun wherever we were and never had trouble keeping ourselves entertained.
My parents have always supported my dreams in any way they could, and that has influenced how I kiteboard. The riding style they instilled in me is to enjoy every session no matter what the conditions and have fun getting creative with it. I used to go windsurfing with a mask and snorkel to check out the coral heads in the Red Sea. To this day, I'll go out with a mask on and go kite snorkelling!
Where can we expect to find you this winter? Any plans in the pipeline you'd like to share with us?
I haven't planned that far ahead yet! There are so many places that I want to see and explore. After our October Egypt trip, we are planning on going to Thailand for Thanksgiving and checking out some new countries in Asia. I want to go back to Oman in July, which is their monsoon season and drive along the coast of the Indian Ocean camping, surfing and kiting.
Blake, it's been epic talking to you! Best of luck this year!
Hey Jen, it's been great chatting with you! Hope we can link up for a session together at some point! Thanks for the interview!
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By Jen Tyler
Italian/Egyptian Jen Tyler grew up on the sandy beaches of the Red Sea and has been on the IKSURFMAG & Tonic Mag team since 2017.
