OFF THE GRID

SHAWN: I first came to Lamu in 2012. Anna and I met in Hawaii and decided to have a very long-distance relationship. She invited me over and all of a sudden, I found myself on a 40-hour flight landing in Lamu on her birthday. That was the first time I came and saw the island.

I grew up in Maui, Hawaii and always thought it was remote there, coming to Lamu changed my perception of what living on the beach actually could be like.
In Lamu, we’re living on a dune, by the ocean. If I want to go to the sea, it’s literally five steps away, there’s no one around and if someone does walk by I know them, from the local villagers to the local fishermen. In Hawaii to have this lifestyle, you’d have to have so much money and land to be able to enjoy the same type of peace and freedom Anna and I experience here in Lamu.

ANNA: My family used to live in the village on the other side of the island. Kizingoni Beach, which is the beach that we live on now, back then was only accessible by foot. My mother had the vision to preserve this strip of land so she bought it. For the first five years, she only planted trees and a variety of different vegetation. After a while, she began building beautiful Swahili villas in the area. During that time we lived as a family here at the Cabanas. Our home cabana on the dune was built purely out of palm leaves. Today it’s called “Ohana” and it’s one of the cabanas we rent out.

SHAWN: Life on Lamu is simple, you don’t need much. We live completely off-grid and it has become such a passion of ours. I’m proud to be able to control and supply all of our power. With energy from solar panels and windmills and water from the spring, it makes you aware of everything you are doing and your impact. I know what’s running, how much energy I’m using and how much we’re able to produce.

ANNA: We don’t have shops or supermarkets. Everything is fresh, your fish comes directly from the ocean and the mangoes from our mango tree. It’s a very unique way of living and something very hard to find in today’s world. Shawn and I spend most of our time outside. All of our houses are open with huge windows, we live under grass roofs and we use a lot of material from the surrounding coconut trees and the dune palms to create our homes.

SHAWN: Anna and I started renting out the cabanas to be able to share our passion and this ‘barefoot luxury lifestyle’ as we call it. Anna is very passionate about yoga, and she’s a health coach, we have two therapy rooms, two massage rooms and a Yoga Sharla overlooking the water. All building materials grew organically and we have been mindful to use the things around us and the skill set the village had to offer.

ANNA: We have a very friendly, peaceful and symbiotic relationship with the local community because we help bring economy and jobs through our retreat here. The village women make all of our mats, light shades, and even the woven grass that makes up our roofs. We try wherever possible to bring staff in from the village, and we support the local school. We’ve just put in computers to give the children an opportunity to learn how to use them as this will be a required skill in the ‘real’ world.

SHAWN: Within our Eco Retreat we focus on healthy eating, healthy living, yoga and wellness as well as kitesurfing. Now we will become a Duotone Pro Center which I’m really excited about. The school specializes in intermediate to advanced lessons and we also have the beginner section to give clients their first experience of kiteboarding at our incredible spot. It’s amazing to find a brand that has such a large offering of high-end kitesurfing, foiling and winging equipment. My goal is to surprise our guests and have the best of the best, the highest-end gear, the most cutting edge, the latest. I think it’s great for our little spot on Lamu Island to be showcasing all of what Duotone has to offer. So even a kitesurfer who’s coming from an area that is quite exposed to kitesurfing, might not have the latest gear that we have here in the middle of nowhere.

ANNA: We also have a handcrafted Swahili Dhow, which is a sailboat, named Killindini, all wood, made with a lot of passion, love and effort. We’ve started to run multi-day, or even day trips where you can explore the entire Lamu archipelago, which is absolutely breathtaking and you can incorporate a kiting adventure into a trip.