While people travel far and wide to try their hand at water sports, few locals take the opportunity that comes with having the sea outside their doors. Stephanie Fsadni meets an exception. Born into a family of windsurfers, John Cachia has become a Jack – and master – of all trades.
Being surrounded by the sea, the Maltese have ample room to practise water sports, yet relatively few exploit this opportunity. However, those who do are usually die-hards.
We are getting older now, but have absolutely no intention of staying on dry land
This is the case with 21-year-old John Cachia. You can catch him all year round practising all kinds of water sport imaginable – windsurfing, kitesurfing, stand-up paddling (SUP), surfing, wake boarding, sailing, free diving and also fishing and spear fishing.
“Being around the sea all the time, you always look for something different to do. So trying different sports is just part of the fun of being in the water,” John says.
His parents surely played a key role in giving John this love of the sea. His mother Bunty and father Anton used to sail and race on dinghies until windsurfing was introduced in Malta in the mid-1970s by the late Paul Ripard.
“A lot of dinghy sailors wanted to try it and that is how windsurfing took off. Everyone went crazy about it and we used to have big regattas and racing every weekend throughout the year,” Bunty recalls.
A die-hard herself, she admits she only stopped windsurfing when she was pregnant with her three children, and once they were born, she was out at sea again “almost immediately”.
John and his older siblings Daniel and Rebecca all learned to windsurf at a very young age and they were encouraged to try as many water sports as possible.
“As the kids were growing up, even our holidays were windsurfing holidays and we always did everything together as a family,” says Bunty.
Now, Daniel has sailing and windsurfing instructor certificates and a commercial Boatmaster certificate (meaning he can skipper boats up to a certain length), while Rebecca is a dive master; but both do other jobs for a living.
John, who also has a Boatmaster certificate, works with his father as a sail maker and intends to carry on with this line of work.
“We do sail repairs, washing of sails and we also import new sails, windsurfing and kitesurfing equipment,” he explains.
And in his free time, he practises his hobbies, the latest being SUP, which he admits finding “much more fun” than windsurfing.
However, he says that windsurfing remains his favourite sport as it is the most technical one.
Different sports, however, can be practised in different weather conditions all year round. After windsurfing, John picked up wake boarding as he tried to find other things to do in the sea when it was not windy. But he says that, unfortunately, this sport seems to be dying out “due to the cost of fuel needed to pull the skier”.
John also forms part of the Artie team as bowman. The yacht won the Rolex Middle Sea Race, among other successful achievements.
“It is fun being with a great team and pushing the sailing sport to its limits,” says John.
These sports must surely give him an adrenaline rush, but then John has another passion that would not necessarily be associated with excitement: fishing.
“I find fishing to be very relaxing and I also do it as a part-time job.”
John cannot imagine life without the sea and encourages others to take up such sports: “I think it is a good way to spend your free time because Malta is surrounded by the sea and you can easily get away from your daily routine.”
Bunty, who runs a blog with a section on windsurfing, shares her son’s opinion.
“It just does not make sense not to make the most of what we have,” she exclaims.
She realises she is lucky to be able to practise windsurfing with her husband and son and aims to carry on doing this well into old age.
“It certainly is very special to be out on the water together and I realise it is quite a unique situation,” she says.
“We are, of course, getting older now, but have absolutely no intention of staying on dry land.”