Luciano was right back on top of his game today at the final of the Master of the Ocean competition. He won both the Kiteboarding and surfing competitions and right now, we are waiting for the results of the overall competition; will he be 2010 Master of the Ocean? The next Blog will have the answer…………….

Our very own Luciano Gonzalez, resident sports manager at Swell surf camp Cabarete, is favorite to carry away the trophy as he has done on two other occasions.   You can watch the video of Luciano kiting huge waves recently on http://www.vimeo.com/9539480

For kiteboarding/kitesurfing , Cabarete really is the place to learn; you can gather information on kite boarding holidays from this website, about Cabarete kite surf holidays

You can check it on this link http://www.vimeo.com/9539480

It features Luciano Gonzalez, one of the most talented water sportsmen of the Dominican Republic and a lovely person too.  Luciano will be competing at the Master of the Ocean event taking place in Cabarete, beginning the 23rd February.

Our hotel has gained a strength now from it’s guests – quite hard to explain really.   With each week that goes by, the new arrivals seem to be ‘carried’ through their first ‘awkward’ feeling (if they have one at all) by the people who have been in the camp for a while, with friendly greetings and a warmth that makes everyone feel almost instantly at home.   Jim and I are enjoying the camaraderie that exists in the hotel and seems to go on and on, regardless of who arrives these days.

Below are some of the photos we have taken of our guests and my son Drew in the last days as they surfed or kite-boarded in this great town.

We used the conditions of earlier in the week to get some photos of Luciano Gonzalez as he prepares for the Master of the Ocean event which will take place in February (roughly 3 weeks from now).  Huge waves and good wind created a fine photo opportunity for this talented Dominican………. Luciano is looking for a Sponsor for his kite equipment by the way.

I have to remind people that Cabarete, and the whole of the Dominican Republic are completely unaffected by the earthquake that hit Haiti – we are all fine and there is NO damage at all here!!  You will see from these photos that we were enjoying a beautiful sunny day and I took all these photos from the top of a cliff – standing a metre from a 50 metre drop – no, I was not worried that an earthquake would send me reeling over the edge.

I did not even feel the two tremors that were widely reported as being felt by most people in the town but I knew something was odd when China, one of the maids at Swell reported feeling the earth shaking.  I checked the pool at the hotel and saw that the water was swilling from side to side and overspilling into the garden.

It all seemed like nothing really – no damage – so it was all the more difficult to see the devastation in neighbouring Haiti.  Today has just been a sad day all round.

I am in half a mind not to write this as the place will rapidly become too busy and we’ll miss out perhaps, but on the other hand, having invested a ton in a great coffee machine and other stuff, she and Freddy deserve real success.  They are also running tours up to the coffee producers and doing FREE delivery on food orders in Cabarete; good job Trish (just don’t sell all those yummy bacon egg and cheese bagels i love so much).