Born in the south of France but raised on the caribbean islands of Martinque, Jeremie Tronet has been around ocean all his life. The sport of kite surfing has been gaining momentum for a while now and Jeremie is at the forefront of it winning multible championships in the caribbean and he has his sights on making sure kite surfing is around for a long time. I sat down with Jeremie while he was in New York for a short Q n A. Please enjoy!

1. Out of all other water sports you could have done, what brought you to kite surfing?

Jeremie: I grew up on an island surrounded by water, so I was always in the water, diving, fishing & surfing, anything related to water. I was also flying kites, I started with small kites then got introduced to big kites and played around the beach all the time with them and it became natural to merge the two as far as kites and my love for surfing and that's how kite surfing started really. In Martinique my friends and I use to kite surf all the time before it really became a proper sport.

2. How long have you been kite surfing professionally?

Jeremie: Eight years professionally, I started very young so I was lucky enough to be involved in the competitions at a young age.

3. Do you plan your maneuvers when your in the air or does it just come out of the blue?

Jeremie: It's very fast and it depends, we have some different kind of tricks but at a certain level now we do tricks that is similar to wake boarding so it happens very fast under the kite and we don't really go very high, we just do fast maneuvers and once you go for it you just have to go and not think about it. It's always nice to film each other between surfing because you can always watch the moves in slow motion and see the mistakes you've made.

4. Congratulations on opening up your own kite surfing school, Tell us more about it and where is it located?

Jeremie: I travel to many different places and as I traveled I always wanted to find a place to settle down one day and I found this small beautiful place in the Grenadines called Union Island, it's an amazing island that's very famous for sailing with an amazing beach so to make a long story short we partnered with a hotel over there to build a kite surfing school which is called JT pro centers where guest can learn kite surfing and also we knew there was a lot of potential for kite surfers from all around the world to come here. The big dream is to have kite surfing centers in all the Caribbean islands and beyond.

5. For Surfers it's about getting that rush of a big wave, is it like that when your kite Surfing?

Jeremie: The good thing about kite surfing is you progress fast that means you’re always going to have that big rush from the first day. Doing a few meters by standing on the board you’ll feel this rush, going faster you'll get that rush, and jumping is a big part of it too, so if you want to compare to the big waves in kite surfing it would be the highest jump.

6. When Jeremie Tronet isn't kite boarding or teaching, what does he like to do on his off time?

Jeremie: Well... Let’s say we are on Union Island, I love this island but it’s very small, so people tend to say it’s boring here and there is nothing to do. Actually it's not, it’s one of the busiest places I have been to, because when there is no wind we can go fishing, we can go diving so I am always looking to do things around water and most of time when I am not in the water I’m in my house by the beach editing videos for my travel series for ride along TV and handling other business issues.

7. The most important thing in your travel bag?

Jeremie: Most important thing... Wow! I usually travel with over 400 pounds of equipment, so it is very hard to say. I have the kite surfing equipment and I have the photo equipment so I would say depending on here I go, if I am going to Indonesia I would bring my surf board, if I go to Brazil I would bring my kite surfing equipment, so it’s all about where I am going.

8. I saw a video of you where you got off your board and started walking on the water real quick, where did that come from?

Jeremie: That's actually my trick that I invented it's called Jesus style.

9. Where will you be traveling to next? what's on the itinerary?

Jeremie: Right now I actually don't have any plans, it’s very random. I have been invited to Colombia to shoot a movie to promote travel to the country, so it might be Colombia, I would love to go there and check out the sites and culture.