Sicily

Our annual product photoshoot is always a great opportunity to meet up with the team, strengthen team spirit and spend quality time together on the water. However, it also involves a lot of hard work – endlessly waiting for the right wind, weather conditions and perfect light, along with other factors that turn our photo and video material into something beautiful. During our stay in Sicily, we decided to explore numerous locations for shooting to make our shots and footage more unique. As a result, we didn’t spend much time in the main lagoon, despite it being beautiful and the easiest spot for kiting. Instead, we sought out more remote and unique areas. 

My personal favorite was the dinghy trip around the outer banks of the Lo Stagnone area. We played pirates, loading all our gear and the crew onto a dinghy, carefully navigating through coral reefs around the far end of the island. Here, we found some sweet spots, including an abandoned old salt mine with brick walls that we used as natural obstacles to gap over. It was an amazing, unique yet dangerous location. The water level was extremely low, and every few meters, there was a gap to clear over what I believe were the old salt mine foundations.

My other favorite spot was a location we named “Safari” – a large bay further north towards San Vito Lo Capo where we hadn’t seen any kiting before. Surrounded by high mountains and black rocks, it evoked a moon-like atmosphere. We caught a magical sunset, foiling until the very end when the wind suddenly dropped, forcing me to swim back against the current with all my gear. It was a scary end to a beautiful session but rewarded us with some stunning sunset shots of kites on the water. Sometimes, you have to take a risk to meet the high expectations of the camera team! Tomek and Adrian are not only passionate sports photographers but are always striving to showcase the products and action in the best possible light, alongside the stunning surroundings of nature, which are abundant in Sicily.

For those who have visited Sicily and the Lo Stagnone area before, it won’t be a surprise that after a long day on the water, it’s essential to visit the local hot springs. This place has an amazing vibe and we loved spending our evenings there enjoying the warm water and natural waterfalls, which we used as massage guns. It’s quite a hike through wet, slippery and muddy terrain. This time, aside from the usual buckets of wine, we had to carry some of the boards for product pictures – it really felt like being a camel for a moment!

I can’t fail to mention the local gourmet. Having been to Sicily before, I already had my favorite restaurants picked out, but honestly, wherever we went, we ate something amazing. The pasta, seafood and of course the pizzas were out of this world. Surprisingly, it’s relatively cheap and I’d say it’s actually more affordable to have a great meal in Sicily with top-quality dishes than in Brazil these days. And let’s not forget the daily visits to cafes, where we indulged in endless varieties of cannoli and other sweets that our cameraman Mutek ZIelinski was the biggest fan of. 

To sum up, I highly encourage anyone who hasn’t visited this region to put Sicily and Lo Stagnone on your map. I’d personally choose April or October as the best months to visit as the temperatures then are comfortable. The height of summer might be a bit too hot for me to handle during the day! We had an incredible adventure, scored plenty of good sessions on the water and had a lot of fun while doing it.