Those are the words out of the local’s mouths when we come in off the water each day here on the north shore of the Dominican Republic…. “Classic Cab!” The forecast looks like groundhog day: hot 88 degrees of air temp, 80 degrees of water temp, mostly to completely sunny, light easterlies before eleven o’clock, smoking south-easterlies from one o’clock to six followed by a possible shower. What does that mean for us? The training group Raul Aguayo (going to his first Olympics, one of 24 athletes from the Dominican Republic), Dave Wright (Canadian Sailing Team member and training partner leading into my trials in Newport), and our local host and masters sailor Ari Barshi leaves the beach around eight o’clock in the morning to get the light air and lump left over from the previous day’s breeze. We drill with coach Rulo upwind, downwind, and around the bouys for about three and a half hours and hit the beach for lunch at the sailing center around noon. After a bit of debriefing and talk about how the day went, we generally rig up the windsurfers and blast around in the afternoon breeze until we can no longer stand up and then head back to the apartment for recovery.
The place is absolutely incredible. Each day is so similar to the next that you can correct the most minute details of your technique and you truly have to force yourself to take a day off every once in a while for a full recovery. More photos and video to come. Meanwhile check out CaribWind.com and see for yourself what I’m talking about.
