Sophie’s Wind

25/07/2014

Sport



Today I want to tell you a story that combines kitesurfing, a sport that I love, to the strength of overcoming our own limits, always taking on new challenges. It’s the story of Sophie Bernier, who on July 12 became the first female ever to successfully kitesurf from the Mauritius to Reunion Island: both located in the Indian Ocean, although divided by 180 km of sea. Sophie covered the distance by kite, in only eight and a half hours: an extraordinary result.

Sophie explains in an interview that “in sports, during the challenge, the advantage lays in always setting an objective, which will encourage you to move forward: it helps you to question yourself, it pushes you to measure your qualities”. In 2009, once her parachuting experience was over, she moved to Reunion Island and there she started working as a nurse: the call of a big challenge, however, can be too hard to resist, so she decided to open a female-only kitesurfing school. In Reunion certainly there’s no shortage of either wind or sea.

The school worked, grew, kept her busy every day: the emotion of challenging herself further, however, was yet again a far too powerful calling. And so, a year ago, she started organising the crossing, quoting Gandhi on her Facebook page only days before setting off: “Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will”.

An undertaking successfully completed, as she describes in a lengthy status update on the social network, which concludes:

“I am finishing writing this note now, although I’d like to go out: it’s 3 o’clock in the morning and it’s Sunday (actually, it’s already Monday!) and since Saturday, since the crossing, I’ve been sleeping a total of seven hours. It’s weird, because usually I’m like a groundhog, I love sleeping: I hope this challenge hasn’t taken my sleep away forever. Because I love dreaming so much.”

Well done Sophie, you’ve discovered in the best possible way how far dreams can take us.