Habibi Beach Blog

We went up to Habibi this weeked for a quick look around at the building work and two days of solid wavesailing. With 4.7s and really nice waves it was good for jumping and also very rideable with nice waves coming in a little further upwind than normal where the wind is quite sideshore, allowing for some easy down the line. Some big stalled forwards from OS's Jack (see above, far above) and forwards on the way in from one of our clients Jules as well as solid perfomances from Dom and Dan and Micheal from the Poles. Great fun blasting downwind at the end of the session as well.

On the building front I'm just back from a meeting with the owner of Berrylands hotel (the official name of the hotel at Habibi Beach, named after the daughter of the owner, Hassan), and he assured us that we're still on for a January 2009 opening of the hotel, although in my opinion there is still a lot to do to meet that deadline.  

 

There's not really been a huge amount of progress since the start of this entire blog, but we're promised that the next few days will see work start in earnest. During Ramadan and the feast which follows it there's only been two or three guys working there, and it would take years to finish the project at that pace, but once you get an army of builders on site things will start to happen very quickly.  

They have finished the shells of 4 or 5 of the rooms now, and they're looking quite nice, with wooden roofs that remind you of an alpine lodge. We got our first idea of how the gardens will be too, apparently they're going for an English garden look with small hills of grass and cast iron benches to sit on, as well as a nice large swimming pool next to a big bar area, which isn't very English frankly but all the better for that. It should be very nice and it will make windsurfing at Habibi such a nice experience. To date we only reguarly go to Habibi when the wind is very strong, at least 5.2 weather, but just occasionally we've sailed there in 5.7/6.2 wind as well and it's great. It has a totally different character, much less full on and hectic, but still good coastal sailing, with swells to jump off and gybe on, and frankly perfect in just a pair of boardies. Moses bay has the backdrop of the town of El Tur, which is interesting, but not the prettiest view. At Habibi you get a fantastic view of the mountains.