Left Continue shopping
Your Order

You have no items in your cart

Promotion
Read more
Antigua Insider

Antigua Insider

We caught up with kiter extraordinaire Jake Kelsick from Antigua. He and his girlfriend Megan kitesurf and travel, and make some cool vids. We put a few questions to Jake, and these were his answers:

What’s a typical Antigua day for you two?
A typical day starts with a quick walk outside to check the weather. It's usually sunny but if it's windy that's when we get excited. On a windy day in Antigua, we will spend a good chunk of it Jabberwock beach making the most of the trade winds kiteboarding or kite foiling. Then the rest of it is usually spent editing photos & videos or coming up with content ideas for the next windy day.

Where is your favorite island hangout?
Anywhere on the west side of the island if we are doing a beach lime. The west side has a lot of nice beaches to choose from. Besides that most of the night time action happens down in the English harbor which is always a fun time.

Antigua is famous for 365 beaches- which is your favorite?
Jabberwock takes the cake again because it's my home away from home but if I had to pick another. Probably Johnson's Point or Perns Point.

Where are you traveling to next?
We plan on spending most of the windy season in Antigua which is until around June/July but we do have a trip coming up in the Bvi's in January for a little event called the Kite & Paddle festival on Anegada. Hosted by Tommy Gaunt Kitesurfing.

As an island boy Jake what’s your favorite rum?
English harbor 5-year-old is the one! Smooth and has been a staple since I was allowed to leave the house at night haha.
HIHO International
Read more

San Francisco Nice

Our zest for the San Francisco Bay Area extends back to our windsurfing racing days when we spent weeks and months training & competing here. Summers in San Francisco offered plenty of wind but cool temperatures, especially compared to the balmy Virgin Islands.  It was a treat to recently return and enjoy a perfectly gorgeous San Francisco weekend.  
The weather was gorgeous so we took every advantage and clambered aboard a Newport 41 sailboat for an afternoon of cruising around the Bay. In a light seabreeze we tacked up under the Golden Gate bridge, which we think is one of the greatest structures every built by man.  We sailed under the bridge listening to the hum of traffic several hundred feet above us, then out into the widening bay between San Francisco and Marin headlands where we saw black porpoises, seals and a sea lion, and shared the splendid afternoon with other boats.  
The following day and in even better weather we took the top down on our car and drove up the coast to the Marshal Store on beautiful Tomales Bay where we sucked down delicious oysters and enjoyed a bottle of Sancerre.  On the drive home we visited a farm stand in Bolinas, then diverted off Highway1 for a ride along the Seven Sisters ridge high above Stinson beach. We took in the sunset, which was a ball of fire dipping into the cold Pacific Ocean, and then descended into Mill Valley and back onto Hwy 101 to San Francisco.
HIHO International
Read more
People Power

People Power

We scooted down to Antigua to see our friends paddle into English Harbour finishing the 3,000 mile Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge in 30 days, 2 hours and 12 minutes. Team Antigua raced spectacularly, finishing 2nd and, along with the teams in 1st and 3rd, breaking the record to row across the Atlantic.

The welcome was boisterous. Boats big and small ventured offshore to meet the boys as they approached Antigua. When they were five miles upwind of the finish more than a dozen boats and one guy on a paddle board surrounded them. The cliffs were lined with hundreds of people while the entrance to English Harbour was choked with craft of all kind. At the finish line a might cheer arose as horns blared. the team fired off red flares waving to the spectators around them. Then, as they slowly rowed to the finish dock the yachts in the bay let loose their horns creating a cacophony of cheering, booming horns. Antiguan flags were everywhere.

The team reached the dock and were enveloped by a sea of cheering Antiguan's waving flags and dancing. A half dozen drones buzzed above everything. The spectacle was quite moving, and made all the more poignant when team leader Eli Fuller pulled up to the microphone after a host of government officials had taken their credit for the epic journey. Eli said that the most wonderful thing was the support from his island which followed the race hour by hour. He was right! Kids discussed the race in school, parents bought hundreds of our HIHO Team Antigua Suntek Shirts and the media posted daily news updates.

The team representing one of the smallest nations on the planet and they raced their hearts out and almost won. And, in case you wondered, we supplied them HIHO suntek SPF 50 shirts which they wore every day protecting them from the UV Rays.

Read more