Watergate Bay heritage: Dreya Bennett

Taking to the skies

Finding herself back at Watergate in 1996, Dreya was invited by Henry Ashworth, Watergate’s CEO (who also happened to have grown up in the same village), to try a new sport that he’d found a taste for in South Africa. Kitted out in his kite apparel, he persuaded Dreya to jump on and have a go herself. After getting thrown five meters in the air and landing face-first in the shallows, Dreya was hooked.  

Taking the reins with the sport and making a mark on the local scene, Henry asked Dreya to help him establish one of the UK’s first dedicated kite schools, Big Air on Watergate Bay (which is now where you’ll find the Wavehunters crew), a challenge she accepted in 1999. As a burgeoning sport in the UK in the early 2000s, Dreya quickly became a leading figure, not only helping establish Watergate as one of its key locations but also championing more people - women in particular - to take to the skies. 

A hive of adrenalin and adventure, Big Air evolved to become The Extreme Academy in 1999, drawing new threads to its adrenaline-fuelled bow. “It was a really exciting time. We met so many new people through the sport, and had some great events, including getting the World Tour and the British Kite Championships to come to Watergate.” From surfers to wave skiers, SUPers and bodyboarders, the space quickly became a hub for adventure seekers to gather, serving post-action food and drinks, including the signature Extreme Hot Chocolates that made the perfect antidote to high-octane time out on the water.

The pro years

During her time at the kite school, Dreya also competed as a pro on the global circuit, at one point ranking third in the world. “It was a pretty good feeling to be up there on the podium. I got to stand up there a few times which was amazing.”

Competing as a pro for six years, she had an open passport to kite surfing destinations around the world. “It took me everywhere”, she explains. “From Margarita and the Dominican in the Caribbean to Rio in Brazil, then on to Lake Silvaplana in Switzerland, Austria, Spain and Fuerteventura. We’d spend the winters away training in spots like South Africa where the water was warmer and you could get it in all the time.”

But it wasn’t just the Watergate shores that saw her rise to the challenge. Beyond the circuit, recounting her professional kite surfing days, Dreya is most animated when she recalls two kite surfing feats — both testaments to her incredible endurance. Carving her name in the record books for the first time, in 2005, she set off on an expedition with six other female kitesurfing pros, including the then number one Cindy Mosey of New Zealand.

In memory of their friend Silke, a fellow competitor (at the time the world number two), who sadly died in a kitesurfing accident, Dreya and the rest of the crew came together as friends to surf a route Dreya had spotted from the sky: the 70 miles from the Scilly Isles to Watergate Bay.

“We were all very good friends on tour, but we all used to compete with each other. So doing this expedition together, not trying to win was very poignant.” 

But the wind would get up to its old tricks. First, it disappeared. “Cindy and I were the only two who just managed to keep our kites flying,” says Dreya. “But we couldn’t kite – we were just in the water trying to keep them moving.”

Then, with the pair finally approaching Watergate, it turned: a full 180 shift, from the perfect direction to totally offshore, which pushed them further out to sea. “We went from looking at the land to having our backs to it,” she says. “I could see the beach for nearly two hours before we actually got to the shore, just trying to edge up wind, edge up wind, and get to the land.”

Kiting to new shores

The trip was, however, a triumph.  “After that crossing, I got hooked”, says Dreya, “It seemed the natural next step to do a crossing from Cornwall to Ireland”, which she embarked on the following year in 2005. This spectacular effort would see Dreya set off on the world-record 135-mile kite surf from our very own Watergate shores all the way to Dungarvan on the Southern Irish coast. 

This time she started with no wind, flogging away on a 15-metre kite. By the time she arrived, eight-and-a-half hours later, she’d trailed dolphins in the bow of her support boat and watched the ocean turn a completely unfamiliar shade of blue. And now the wind was howling. The shore party kited out to meet her on nine-metre kites. Her desperately tired arms were still wrestling against the wind. 

On arrival, Dreya had now claimed two new world records, one for the 'Longest Continuous Kitesurf' and the other for the  'Longest Continuous Kitesurf by a Woman'. On arriving on Irish shores, she exclaimed, “132 miles - I'm really stoked with that!”. 

Further deepening her connection to this place, 2005 was also the year that Dreya tied the knot to her now husband Layton, right here in what is now Watergate’s Swim Club. The ceremony was followed by a joy-filled reception with her friends and family in the space that the Beach Hut now sits on.

Horse vs. kite

Roll forward to 2013, when, as part of Watergate’s Polo on the Beach — an annual event that began in 2007 and continued for ten years. Dreya was tasked with pitching wind power against horsepower on a race along the sand. 

Up against ex-racehorse Shrivar, ridden by Andy Burgess of South West Polo, a 200-meter stretch lay in front of the pair — with the first over the line to take home the glory. “Some polo ponies can reach speeds of 40mph,” Dreya explains, “ultimately, it was a case of nature vs. nature.”

Unfortunately, this time the horse had the upper hand as onshore winds meant Dreya had to ‘tack’ making a zig-zag instead of going in a straight line so that she could get a purchase on the wind.

Watergate reflections

Not one to rest on her laurels, when Dreya felt it was time to step back from her pro kiting career, she decided to re-stoke the fires of a passion she’d held since university. Having studied glass art, she was compelled to revisit the practice, setting up a studio in Newquay under the name Dreya Glass. From crashing waves and delicate seahorses to large-scale sea scenes, Dreya creates ocean-focussed artworks that capture the spirit of the shoreline.

The second part of her Artist in Residency, will take place in November at the hotel. We can’t wait to see what Dreya comes up with when she returns 6 - 9 November.