warmer places

Hello Sailor Friends:

As Canada sends down more and more cold air, we may be thinking of warmer places.

The current Laser Sailor lists Cabarete, Dominican Republic, as the venue for the 5th Caribbean
Laser Midwinter Regatta for January 12 -14.

Jane and Mike Schmidt visited there recently for an anniversary and send the great trip Report given
below. Many warm images attached.

Thanks Jane...........Enjoy........Carl


----- Original Message -----
From: Jane Schmidt
To: Friends and Family
Sent: Saturday, October 28, 2006 3:54 PM
Subject: Laser Sailing in the Dominican Republic: Trip Report

Lasering in DR

Hello Friends and Family:

First off, I will apologize in advance if you get more than one copy of this as I have more than one address in my address book for many of you and am not sure which ones are correct! I am sending this trip report out along with some pictures attached from our recent trip to the Dominican Republic for our 15th wedding anniversary.

Not having too much time available away from work, we picked a place where we could get to fairly easily and use our American Airline frequent flier miles. After some going back and forth on what we wanted to do, we settled in going to Cabarete in the Dominican Republic. We had some Laser sailing friends who had been there and gave it a big "thumbs up" as well as giving us advice on travel, money exchange etc. Thanks for the tips Lynn and Mike!

Cabarete is located on the northern shore of the DR and is known for windsurfing and for kite surfing and in the past few years also for the site of the Caribbean Mid-Winters Laser Regatta in January as well as being a training center for Laser sailors year around. We left Baltimore early on a Wed. and flew into Puerto Plata DR (plane change in San Juan). Our taxi picked us up and drove us to Cabarete and we were there by 3pm. We stayed at the Hotel Magnifico (www.hotelmagnifico.com) and it was a great choice for us. It was slow season and we were only one of a handful of guests staying on the beautiful oceanfront grounds of this property. The units are actually more like condos with their own kitchens and ours had a rooftop terrace as well as another side balcony, all with wonderful ocean views and breezes. The grounds had beautifully made stone walls and tropical plants and orchids everywere. We were a short walk to a grocery store to by some provisions once we figured out the exchange rate from dollars to pesos.

That afternoon we took the short walk down the beach to the sailing center (www.caribwind.com) and met Andrea who had made all of the arrangements for us. The wind really blows there and we were treated with some spectacular jumps from the kite surfers. Andrea showed us where everything was and we arranged for Mike to have some coaching the next day with Rulo who is from Argentina. The set up is quite nice, right on the beach with lockers for your belongins, fresh water for drinking, beach chairs, hammocks and the EZBar where you could get nice breakfasts and lunches as well as smoothies and other drinks.

Getting back to our room we encountered a friendly cat who ended up spending most of our vacation with us! We even got her some catfood at the store. She was fun and enjoyed being in the room with us and sitting up on the terrace. Not sure what she did during the day while we were gone, but I expect that she was sleeping somewhere or fleecing food off of someone else!

In Cabarete you can walk everywhere and there are tons of places to eat each night. We found the food to be good with interesting selections and not too expensive though on our anniversary night we ate at a restaurant called Otra Cosa and it was superb, special and expensive, but well worth it. We were one of two tables occupied and had a fabulous meal at this special oceanside place.

As for the sailing, Mike went out with Rulo for coaching and they went so far out that you could not even see them anymore. I stayed on the beach reading that day in the shade of the palm trees, swimming when I got too hot and generally relaxing into the Caribbean speed of life. Mike and Rulo came back in a few hours and Mike had a great time, but was exhausted. He learned a lot about sailing in really BIG waves and wind. Rulo was leaving the next day to coach the youth sailing team out of the capiol (Santo Domingo) so we would not see him again.

The next day I got my nerve up and Mike and I went out together. Me on the 4.7 (smallest sail for the Laser) and Mike on the radail (medium sized sail for the Laser). I have never sailed in waves like this before and it was freaking me out. The wind I could handle, but to look behind you when you were going downwind and see waves breaking behind you was scary! I started not looking behind, but then when you are in the trough of the wave with the one that passed you in front of you, that was scary too. We sailed for about an hour and then I felt like I better go in before my good luck ran out. The best thing about sailing there was than either Wilson or Emilio not only rigged your boat, but they derigged it as well. I could get used to that and when Mike and I came in from sailing last weekend I was missing Wilson and Emilio. Mike did some sailing with Ari who owns the sailing center and they had some fun together. I went out the next two days and got more used to the wave action, but never really comfortable. The last day it was windier and gusty too, which was challenging. All in all, it was a blast and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

We loved being there in the off season as there were no crowds. The only drawback of this is that there were more beach vendors than tourists! The food was good, the accomodations were wonderful, the sailing center awesome with Andrea making sure we got whatever it was we needed. The Dominican people were nice as well as interesting. Almost all of them spoke some English and many were fluent. The tourist population was also interesting. A nice mixture of Europeans, South Americans, Canadians and Americans. Even though we were only there 5 nights, it did not seem like a short vacation. We relaxed and got right into the slow mode of things making it the perfect getaway. There are also many other things to do in this area: mountain biking, hiking, horseback riding etc. The DR is a big island and had a much different feel than the other Caribbean island that we have been to; not good or bad, just different.

Hope you enjoyed hearing about the trip and looking at the pictures!

Jane and Mike