When you have a town like this with so much to do, being inside a manufactured corporation hotel is a complete waste of your holiday. There’s a ton of places to stay in Cabarete to suit all budgets – get out and see what’s on offer. Nearest airport is Puerto Plata (POP).

Pictures courtesy of Swell

I rarely enjoy a morning as much as I did this Sunday AM.

Drew and I left for Encuentro at 6am – I was so sleepy. It was worth it however. After 3 or 4 years of encouraging him to surf (after all, we have the perfect spot on our doorstep) he was never ‘hooked’.

That all changed recently and he cannot get enough of the water. No weekend lie-ins now, if he’s excited about going, it’s worth the effort of taking him and taking pictures.  Encuentro is a beautiful place to sit in the early mornings.  I wonder which other surf spots in the world are so well shaded by the trees?

How good looking is the pool cleaning guy?

Now matter how much you love your life in a foreign country, your body (or stomach) just cannot help craving those items that you loved to eat in England. Only British people can cope with eating Marmite for example – we grew up on it and it has been one of the MUST BUYS for me on each return to the UK. Baked Beans too – but let me tell you, it does not take many cans to put you over your luggage allowance.

Well the new Dollar Store between Cabarete and Sosua which opened just over one week ago has just made my life that little bit more enjoyable than it already is. There’s a friendly British couple who have invested the money in bringing a container in of those British MUST BUYS. Colmans English Mustard, real British sausages, back bacon, Twiglets, Quavers, Lyles Golden Syrup, etc etc. All the items that we could not buy here and missed so much.

I am a happy bunny for that!

 Yesterday we had superb kiting conditons; 25 knots and big waves (as you can see from the photo)  

We kited at kite beach and in the next hour ro so, we’ll be back for more.  I need to get back into kiting practice; it’s not like you forget everything, but if you have not been for a while, you sometimes just cannot find the right rhthym; Jim said he felt the same yesterday.  The waves were big and I found myself ‘chicken-jibing’ a lot – that means turning back right in front of a wave instead of taking it on.   I was also cold which did  not help so this morning, I was at the Bic Centre (good surf/equipment store) to buy a neoprene rash guard.  I was sweating beautifully in the store as I tried it on, so I guess it will do the trick in the water for me today.

I have to thank Richie in my Blog; he’s a young kite dude from England who is an instructor on his last month here in Cabarete.  He’s not teaching right now as he wanted his last month to be free; but yesterday, he shadowed my 11 year old son in the water, teaching him back loops and all sorts of other cool tricks.  They kited for about 3 hours together, Richie constantly monitoring/mentoring (he’s a great kiter) and Drew had a blast.  Richie, thanks.

So, back to kite beach now to take on some swell.  Ciao