On april 2015 Elio Canestri, a 13 year old French surfing talent, lost his life due to a tragic shark incident on Reunion Island.

The seas around Reunion island are home to an interesting variety of cetaceans. During our trip we encountered spinner dolphins, humpback whales and indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins in-water.

Due to the el Nino year only few whales could be found along the coast, so the dolphins at times could really steal the show (read: save our day) right in the middle of the whale season..

Before we embarked on our trip to Reunion island I contacted Aurélien Meynieux, one of the top surfing talents of Reunion. Auri is a longboarding champion. He represents France and Reunion in particular in the international longboarding competitions. Longboarding is a much underestimated form of surfing compared to the popular shortboard or big wave surfing, if you ask me. We checked out Auri ride his board in the waves off St. Gilles and Sandy took this picture. He makes surf look easy. Trust me, it is not...