Kitesurf Lessons at Matas Bay — Radio Helmets, a Jet Ski and Flat Water off Matas Blancas

What is this tour like?

A school on Matas Blancas beach at the northern end of Sotavento, where lessons run with a headset in your helmet and an instructor on a jet ski a few metres away. The semi-private beginner lesson is two hours for €140 per person or three hours for €165; private lessons run €145 for the first day, €135 for the second and €125 for the third; a private hour is €110, then €100, then €90. Everything is included and the water in front of the base is flat and at least 1.5 m deep whatever the tide.

Matas Bay prices its kite teaching by the lesson and says explicitly that every figure is per person. The entry point is the semi-private beginner lesson: two students, one kite, one instructor, two hours for €140 or three hours for €165. It covers wind direction, flying the kite and the safety systems, carrying and rigging the kite, launching and landing, entering and leaving the water, one-handed flying and body drag. Once your kite control is good enough the school moves you onto a second kite. Age, weight, strength and level are explicitly not a barrier: the courses are given to young people and adults, and the instructors are IKO or VDWS certified.

The private track is the school's own recommendation for speed. Day one is two hours including half an hour of preparation, €145. Day two, an hour and a half for €135, brings a bigger kite so you feel the pull, body drag with the board and the first waterstarts. Day three, an hour and a half for €125, adds controlled stopping and speed, riding upwind and self-rescue; each further day is another €125. A stand-alone private hour is €110, the second €100 and every hour from the third €90. A one-hour hydrofoil lesson is €110 including the foil, kite, bar and wetsuit. There is also a €500 pack: two days of intensive private tuition totalling three hours, followed by four days of rental with the equipment included.

Groups get their own line. Three to five people booking together pay €130 each for an hour and a half, and each person has their own instructor for that time — a useful thing to know before assuming a group is cheaper.

What the school gives with the lesson is the whole kit: wetsuit, helmet, impact vest, boots, kite and board, changing rooms and lockers, and a shaded area with sunloungers for anyone watching. The spot itself is the argument: flat water with a minimum depth of 1.5 m, a bay that does not depend on the tide and is sailable all day, and fifteen metres from the centre to the water. The prevailing wind is side-offshore, which is why the school launches you from the water's edge with help and keeps the jet ski running. If the wind fails at your lesson time, the lesson is moved to another slot or the next day; in winter the school checks conditions with you by WhatsApp or a call about half an hour before, and offers stand-up paddle free of charge on the flat days. If the swell on Matas Blancas is too big, lessons move to a lagoon a little further south which is sailable about every two weeks. The base is open 10:00–17:30, with shorter winter hours.