Hawaii Efoil Experience — Attraction in Honolulu

Thanks to Alika for a totally awesome experience!

For my 65th birthday I arranged a lesson with Alika of Hawaii E-foil Experience. As an older, but local (Kailua-based) water sports enthusiast, I was looking to add foiling to my water sports quiver. A few attempts with a wingfoil showed that I needed to unlearn foot pressure and balance in transitioning to the foil.

Alika met me at Ke’ehi Lagoon, which is the perfect place to learn, with easy access to flat, calm waters, and plenty of space to learn. Pretty cool scenery too with views of Waikiki, open ocean, and an authentic Hawaiian fishing village in the background.

He was super friendly and totally focused teaching you what you need to know while having a blast. The lesson started with on-land training covering safety, equipment, balance, and the process he uses on the water to get you up and going. He then gets you on the water and rapidly progressing from lying down, to kneeling, and then on your feet learning to maneuver the board while gaining speed and confidence. He uses a two-way communication system built into the helmet to guide you through this process, while following, and even filming your experience. Before long, you are coming up on foil, and starting to fly. With each attempt you get a little further until eventually you are flying and turning on foil. Woo-hoo! Even the inevitable falls are pretty fun and seem like slow motion .... no big deal.

The only problem is now you are hooked and don’t want to stop!

My wife came to watch and ended up doing the on-land training. She is already jumping to take lessons herself. I plan to be back with wife and friends in tow!

Mahalo Alika and looking forward to seeing you out on the...

I had been on the fence about Efoils for awhile now. I thought they were only for futuristic elites like Mark Zuckerberg, who made them look nerdier than a group of synchronized rollerblade dancers.

I also thought they kinda represented the shortcut mentality, like people who jump on electric skateboards but couldn’t tell you what pushing mongo is, or how to ollie up a curb.

Then I began my journey trying to learn to foil on my own and realized that it’s harder than I could’ve imagined and I needed some help.

That’s where Alika comes in.

Excellent, clear advice and knowledge, his pre flight lesson gave me all of the foundations I needed to get out and get to flying quickly.

Top quality equipment, everything needed to feel safe, his calm and reassuring voice in your ear via wireless communication, video footage edited to minimize my kookiness... I couldn’t ask for more.

Huge thanks and props for the great job getting me to fly FOR SUCH A LONG TIME! I felt like I was floating for awhile after the session... driving home I almost forgot how to use the steering wheel, I was lightly leaning into my turns with my shoulders instead. (Hopefully you’ll understand that...

Alika is the real deal and if you or a loved one is interested in learning more about eFoiling, I HIGHLY recommend contacting him for a lesson before you buy a set up as there are many different size boards and wings out there and more likely than not, you will end up buying a more “sporty” version than what you originally anticipated as the learning curve is very fast and what may seem like a good “beginner” set up will quickly get old. Case in point, I ended up taking three lessons from Alika and his colleague, Jimmy, before I purchased a set up of my own. Had I not done that, I would have ended up buying much too large a board and while it would have been “easy” to ride; it would not have been much fun long term. But thanks to my time on the water with Alika, I realized I could probably handle a smaller “pro” model board (after about 6 hours of lesson time) and that is one of the best decisions that I have made with this sport as I LOVE my small 4’4” “pro” model efoil and I know that it will give me a solid few years of use as I continue to get better and advance on it! So save yourself some time and money and take a few lessons...