Name : Benjamin Bartz
Born : 1976
Team member since : 2007
Prior Club Mistral Destinations : El Yaque
Our Team Member of the Month is Benjamin Bartz. He is currently running our Skyriders Center in El Yaque.
Benny started working for Club Mistral in winter 2007 as a VDWS Kitesurfinstructor at our Skyriders Center in El Yaque. It was a great first season for him; it was a perfect team and great atmosphere with a lot of fun and nice guests. He learned Spanish with the most beautiful girl at the beach who was a teacher for languages, so he learned it pretty fast. The South American lifestyle pleased him however this laid-back-”manana”-attitude it is not that easy for a German.
Unfortunately he hurt his shoulder after the first season so that he was not able to do a summer season for Skyriders in Tarifa. He decided to go back to Germany, working in his old job but realized pretty fast, that he was missing the work as a kitesurfinstructor, so that he wanted to come back to Club Mistral for the starting winter season of 2009. This time his girlfriend Ramona went with him working as guest relation girl in Skyriders El Yaque. 
Even if in this year the tourism was touched by the big crisis, there were quite a lot of students who got great and very enthusiastic lessons from him. If 3 kilometers away you can hear somebody shouting “Aaaaaarmeee laaaaaaaaang!!!” (translation: Streeeeetch yooouur aaaaarms!) then you can be sure he is teaching. As he is a very enthusiastic, experienced, attentive and friendly teacher all the guests love him also because his relation to the students is never ending with the lesson. He always has an open ear for questions or problems of the guest and is taking his time to help or explain them something. 
This season then he became Center Manager of Skyriders El Yaque, which was a short term decision of the Head office. So from the thought of coming back as an instructor now he had to take over all the responsibility in a very short time. But as he is well organized and always looking for new challenges he did a very good job at the beginning of the season. With the support of his girlfriend Ramona he managed temporarily both centers in El Yaque - Skyriders and Club Mistral. There was a lot of practical work to do, like renovating the centers and making them nice again for the coming guests, a lot of administrative work like getting into the secret of bookkeeping as well as dealing with the Venezuelan lawyer and accountant who are not speaking a single word of English. On top there was no wind at all the first 2 month of the season but raining two weeks in a row, means no guests and a lot of water in the center but also with the support of the whole team he managed everything perfectly. 
For the team he is not only the boss but a very good friend with whom you can laugh a lot and who is often buying a round of drinks after work. As he is a very open-minded and humorous person he knows everybody on the beach and everybody likes him and is always pleased to help him out with everything.
Now that the season is running and everything is fine he is at least enjoying his days off a lot! Then you find him either on the water improving his kite level or looking after his new baby, called “Bronco”. After the second season without a car he decided to buy an old Ford Bronco which was perfectly running at the beginning... but only at the beginning... Now his best friend is the mechanic who is passing by nearly every day because there is always a new problem with the car. But as Benny is kind of into the South American lifestyle he is quite relaxed when the car once again doesn’t want to get started..
We don´t want to miss him anymore and will never ever let him go! Stay exactly as you are, Benny!
weather information