Extremely exciting

Shop specialises in water sports equipment

Surfing and skating fans can now confidently walk into Fluid, an extreme sports shop, and not only find the latest water sports equipment, but also professional advise by the current wake-board champion of the UAE, Tom Ellis. Recently opened at Al Mazaya Centre, Dubai, Fluid is an extreme sports shop, specialising in skate and surf equipment.

What does it mean when you say extreme? "We have goods related to specific sports, sports that are still a bit unusual in this part of the world," says Jason Waller, managing partner and general manager, Fluid.

"We noticed that there are more and more people taking their skate and surf boarding seriously and we wanted to show our commitment to these people; thus we came up with Fluid."

Jason has been in the sports industry for quite some time now. He, along with friend Kosala Dissanayake, managing director and chief executive officer, Fluid, came up with the idea of opening a specialised sports store five months ago.

"We want to make available for the public anything related to surfing, skate-boarding and wake-boarding under one roof. If somebody feels the urge to indulge in any of these sports suddenly, he or she can walk in here and find everything related to it."

In Dubai since 1987, Tom Ellis, showroom manager, is an added asset to Fluid. Apart from being the U.A.E. wake-board champion for the past five years, he is also ranked number 15 worldwide in the sport.

"Wake-boarding is not very old, but right now it is the fastest growing water sport in the world, and here in Dubai, too. My father had a boat, and I wanted to do something with it, so I started wake boarding around five years ago. It was fun in the beginning, but I started taking it seriously immediately after.

"Right now there's only one place in Dubai that offers wake-boarding to people. I want to make it more commonly available. I would love to take people to Hamriya, Abu Dhabi, Mamzar and give them the option of wake-boarding the whole day," says Tom.

Jason and Tom are currently working on opening a mobile wake boarding school where they can pick up people, children as well as adults, and take them to a particular beach, where Tom can teach them how to wake-board.

"We do not want to restrict our lessons to pay-for-an-hour types. People can pay for a whole day and wake-board to their hearts content. Wake-board, relax and wake-board again, from dawn to dusk. Then towards the evening, we get on to our bus and drop them all back home. We want to make the whole thing very personal and fun.

"At the moment there is no proper coaching being given for wake boarding in Dubai. Our aim will be to educate people about this sport and teach them the proper tricks so that they can get maximum fun out of it."