SUN. May 24, 2009 "Will there be wind?"
Before our trip down here, we had been checking the Dominican wind forcasts from home. Suffice to say they sucked. We were very bummed, but optimistic to make the best of what had been predicted as a week without wind. Through our first night, the trades seemd to be cranking as the windows whistled while we slept. We were hoping that was going to be a good sign for the day. We left the condo about 8 am to head up the street for breakfast since we had not yet been to the supermercado for groceries. We had a very satisfying meal and settled into the vacation pace with no priorities or issues at hand. From breakfast we hit the grocery store and secured the basics for the week.
We had a few hours to kill before the wind would come up around noon, so we spent time getting organized after our fire drill yesteday. By 11am the palm trees were all waving in the wind and we took off for the Vela center to sail.
Initially not very impressive winds requiring 122L boards and 6.9M sails, but we were powered up and that was good. Despite what we had prepaired ourselves for (no wind), so far we were getting it done. As the day wore on we were getting more wind...by 3pm we wer on 86L boards with 5.7M sails and getting some decent 3-4 foot waves out on the reef. Definitely respectable conditions. So far the group consensus is favoring the new Starboard Kode over the JP FSW. The FireFly seems to be the sail of choice for us.
For a holiday week in the States, things seemed a bit slow for Cabarete tourism...the are only 18 guests booked for the week with Vela. Good news for us, we can pretty much sail whatever gear we want. Tim ended early and headed down to Jose o' Shay's to watch the Red Wings game. After we finished sailing and had a few cocktails, we walked down the beach to join him. We saw the third period and started another bar tab than ran to $46 bucks. We need to get some food in us. We headed back to Magnifico to change and walk over to Ali's for Churoso (steak). It was a great dinner for US$ 9 dollars. On the walk home, we ventured to the Casino just east of Cabarete. It was very small but looked like a palace compared toe the rest of Cabaretes construction. Chris sat down for some $10 blackjack and made some friends from Portland and Russia. Not a winner though, the house got his $80.
That was it for the day....we hope for more tomorrow.
