Captain James

"Born near the ocean, James started out Junior Sailing programs as a kid, to then naturally get into water skiing, fishing and surfing. Searching for a longer summer he migrated to St Thomas USVI in his early 20's and got hooked on diving and the Caribbean.
In 2004, back on the mainland, he discovered kitesurfing -a new love- and became instructor. Getting as many kiting day in as he could, he found a way to fulfil his craze the following years by splitting his time between North Carolina and the Caribbean.

By 2008, the Caribbean had been his sailing playground for half of his life, he knew the islands and the surrounding waters and an experienced Pasa Kiteboarding instructor: it just made sense to start to start doing Kitesurfing cruises.

James and I have similar stories in the sense we started kiting almost at the same time, after quite similar experiences, we then both became instructors, almost at the same time too, and started running our kitesurfing cruises in the Caribbean at the same moment as well –fully unaware of each other -.

I discovered him when getting the new Kitesurfari Sxm’s concept together and he responded very positively to the network.

The two of us were really keen to make it happen, yet extremely busy, and our first season “together” funnily turned out to be an exchange of apologetic emails for always been so delayed in our replies.
Generally speaking, emails suit everyone, then getting to talk happens quite easily and it’s solely meeting that really is the tricky –but oh so important- part.

James and I partnership’s seems to have been on a parallel pace to the rest of our lives, as we’ve only managed -almost 2 years after first getting in touch- to get to the “talking” stage.
According that we operate an hour flight or twelve hours sailing away from each other, that is almost admirable!

Now, months of polite emails and oh-so-waited-for skype conversations –blunt as can be, thanks to the typical on and off Caribbean Internet connection- have allowed me to work this out: James is an open minded, enthusiastic and happy person; he has the rare quality to never take anything for granted.

He looks at what he does as a gift, still has the passion for teaching and he is never blasé about anything.
No world champion Ego there but someone who loves what he does and his grateful for doing it. He still looks at sailing and kiting within the islands as an endless adventure…

And that makes me want to share one his journeys.
We’re meant to catch up this fall.
Which probably means by next year if our pace remains unchanged -but according that James and I actually don’t need to speak much to be exactly on the same track, it doesn’t really matter…

Emilie Marx"