My wife and I decided to visit her family in Paoay, Ilocos Norte, Philippines... But to get me interested she allowed me to turn it into a kite spot discovery expedition.

I searched the net looking for suitable locations and found a place called Pagudpud. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagudpud I liked the look of it and hought it would be worth a look... Hey the have wind turbiles so there must be wind right? 

3/Feb/2008

Today we visited a beach called Karimor??? just outside Ilocos norte. WOW i pumped the 12m but not enough at 11.00am so i pumped the 14m i got 1 hr of fantastic side on shore riding, then had to bail, too over powered. after lunch the 9m wass perfect but i had to leave at 3.00pm to socialise with the family  

05/Feb/2008

Just got back from Pagudpud. My conclusion is that it is not good for Kitesurfing. The wind is predominatly off shore and very shelterd around the beach area making launch and land very dificult, That combined with a very large and violent shore break would make it very dificult and dangerous to play there. The wind picked up in the afternoon but still off shore and even if coming from another direction i still dont think it would be suitable.

We ate going to try Fort Illocandia tommorrow, which is along the same coastline as the first day. http://www.fortilocandia.com.ph/pg_hotel.htm 

I met a local from the resort while playing on sunday and he said the wind was consistant and they can provide rescue support as needed at a reasonable fee. I will post the results tommorrow 06/Feb/2008 We went to fort illocandia today, the wind was blowing at 20kt+ so i started with th 9m slingshot. i got a few good taks but ran into problems, it appeared the leading edge was leaking. So i went to the 12m Nano and spent the rest of the day crusing, there was a lot of surf but worth the hard work. I got the wave jumping sorted out(so much fun). I have been teaching the locals how to help me launch and land they have learnt well. Last day tommorrow so we will head back to carrimor beach as only 20 min drive from the hotel. I think i will be coming back to fort illocandia. 

11/Feb/2008

SUMMARY Heres what we found in the philippines. We looked at a few spots based around Laoag™ The first place we visited was a beach called Currimao beach http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=18.004121,120.493069&spn=0.051017,0.079823&t=h&z=14&om=0 It was side on shore(NW) even when the prevailing wind was NE, probably something to do with the coast line. There were some hotels on the beach

Next we went to a place called the Boracay of the north "Pagudpud"  http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=18.561971,120.756226&spn=0.203414,0.31929&t=h&z=12&om=0 they have a wind farm there so you would expect strong consistent winds, but the day we were there was no wind anywhere. http://pagudpud.awe.ph/saud-beach-pagudpud/ 

No wind thistime but the locals said it blows good. Last stop was a place called Fort Illocandia resort. http://www.fortilocandia.com.ph/pg_hotel.htm The beach is around 10miles long a decent surf(1-1.5 meter the day I was there) to play in and a very consistant side on shore (45deg) the wind starts round 11am and gets increasingly stronger during the day. 14m kite at 11am, 12m at 1pm, and after 2.30 I was powered up on my 9m. http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=18.135085,120.511265&spn=0.101959,0.159645&t=h&z=13&om=0 Found a nice place to clean kites...

To get there you must first fly to Manila then transfer to a domestic flight to LAOAG (abour 45min )