It’s been a total of eighteen days that President Obama’s been in retirement. And from the looks of it, he isn’t wasting any time escaping to tropical atolls, getting his relaxation on, and taking up new hobbies.
For now, the former president is currently on the island of Necker in the British Virgin Islands, which is privately owned by Sir Richard Branson, the flamboyant English billionaire and founder of Virgin Group.
A blog post on Virgin’s website recants the pair’s foray into kiteboarding and foilboarding, and a friendly competition to see if Obama could tame a kite before Branson stood up on a hydrofoil.
“It was a huge honor to be able to invite President Barack and Michelle Obama down to the British Virgin Islands for a complete break after Barack finished his second term as President and the family left the White House,” says Branson in the post.
“One of the first stories Barack told me when he and Michelle arrived on Moskito Island was how, just before he became President, he had been surfing on a dangerous break in Hawaii. When he came in from an exhilarating session, the new head of his security team turned to him and said: ‘This will be the last time you surf for eight years.’ For the next eight years, he didn’t have the chance to surf, enjoy watersports or do many of the things he loved.
“So it was tremendous to offer him the chance to learn to kitesurf. The sport has really taken off in the past decade and we have the perfect conditions and team to help anyone learn. I have also wanted to learn foilboard surfing. So we decided to set up a friendly challenge: could Barack learn to kitesurf before I learned to foilboard? We agreed to have a final day battle to see who could stay up the longest.”
Spoiler alert. Score one for Mr. President.
Read the full post here.
