All is going Swell here in Cabarete on the North coast of the Dominican Republic.

We just had the busiest and most fun filled surf camp winter 2011/2012 season end. Not the best waves this season, (but definitely the best vibes). When we say the waves were not the best, we mean that we did not get many double overhead swells. But since most of our guests are beginners or intermediates, they got the best of the surf conditions, consistent waves in between the chest and overhead range, which is perfect for learning or improving your skills.

We are now in May, and the camp is still 80% full, so the social vibe at the camp continues. In fact the vibe has received a new impulse with some staff changes.

A new qualified surf instructor has joined Swell: Amanda, she’s 20 years old;  very very enthusiastic about teaching people how to surf in a structured, fun and safe way.

Besides being a great surf instructor she is also a very good surf photographer, so if you want a souvenir from your Caribbean surf holiday here in Cabarete, talk to Amanda to have your surf picture taken by her.

Amanda’s first client, Alex, was up and riding in no time.

Constant feedback to take it to the next level.

The next big change at Swell Surf camp Cabarete is that we have a new camp manager: Houdy, she will be replacing Martha, who has been with us for 2 years and did a great job, she will be missed.

Houdy has lots of experience in the hospitality industry, she loves cooking and gardening, so expect good food and a great looking garden upon your arrival.

Another new staff member is Luca, a young and very vibrant Dominican. He’s been with us for a month now and even though he doesn’t speak much English yet (he starts his English lessons tomorrow) the clients adore him, he’s very helpful and a great surfer and assistant instructor.

And the last change is Ashley, who will also be a member of the Swell Surf camp team, he’s a qualified kite surf instructor and will also be teaching surfing and doing guided surf trips when the waves are pumping.

Summer season is coming up, which means great news for kite and windsurfers, because the trade winds are very predictable for the afternoons.
This doesn’t mean however that the surf season has ended, in  fact summer is one of the best seasons for complete beginners, small gentle waves make perfect playgrounds for learning to surf without getting pounded by big waves. Also a great season for families looking for a safe surf holiday with their kids.

Oh and did we mention that we have low season surf package pricing in place between may and October? see the surf packages page here >>

Here’s some of the better pics from the last week.

Amy was a natural, taking chest high waves all by herself after the 1 week surf course

Dill is jealous since his new beach buddy has very cool sunnies.

Ok, that’s it for now.

Hasta pronto

Swell Surf camp team

Pre-surf stretching has been a vital part of the surfing process – using limbs in a way that is alien to most other daily activities or sports can take it’s toll, even on bodies whose owners consider themselves to be quite fit ordinarily.  Unless you are a seasoned swimmer, arms are not used to paddling as a rule so shoulders can react unpleasantly to the demands of catching those waves.  Good balance is also an essential part of the surfing process.  Yoga brings together many of the skills you will need to learn to surf well and perhaps most importantly, helps to stretch, relax, repair and tone aching limbs.

At Swell, we are very fortunate to have the lovely Molly O’Meara as our Yogi – Molly’s very friendly and relaxed way of teaching Yoga really concentrates on the individual…..she’s wonderful at pin-pointing your sore spots and gently encouraging your body to ‘give’ and relax.  Yoga sessions are held at least twice per week and can be increased on request.

For more info on the yoga and surf package prices at Swell have a look at this page: http://swellsurfcamp.com/prices.html

In case you have boundless energy and a love of music-based exercise, we also have unique access to our own Spinning® venue.  Clare and her team of superb instructors will take you on a high-energy ride sure to leave you feel exhilarated and nicely exhausted.

Swell surf camp has Kettle-Bells, Yoga mats, Gymnastic Rings, a Slack-line and genuine Indo-Board for improving your balance skills.

What else ?

It’s been a bussy season here, and whenever Swell staff had the time we’d go to the beach to take some surf pictures of the clients at Swell.

Here’s some more

And here’s some pictures we took on the weekly Swell Surf Camp river trip

More images of the Yoga at Swell Surf camp next week.

First off, very  happy to see lots of return guests at Swell in the next month.

Early morning sunrise at our local surf beach

Norm, as usual has brought the wind back with him; one of the luckiest men when it comes to picking the right time versus conditions in Cabarete, he’s back for the 5th time.  Daniel’s already here for his 2nd visit and right now is on the beach taking a kite lessons with Luciano.  Chris arrives for his 3rd visit in a few days and following him will be Joanne, Jamie, Pat, Danielle, Stan, Jeanne and also a lot of brand new guests joining the ever-growing Swell family. Everyone is welcome!

The surf has been good, consistent fun waves; ranging from shoulder to double over head.

We had some epic sessions at out favourite spot:

Morgan, our Australian client got a lot of good waves this day.

Martha, the excellent manager at Swell also caught some good right handers

And even I caught a few good lefts.

Now, not meaning to upset any of our North American friends, some more snow storms across the US would be welcome, as they often turn into a great North swell for us here in the Dominican Republic.

What else has been going here at Swell?

We launched the new website, http://www.swellsurfcamp.com

What other places can you find Swell:

on Google +:

https://plus.google.com/100365096369531562266/posts

 Facebook  fan page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Swell-Surf-Camp/162734790410280.

We won the 2011 Travellers choice award on tripadvisor:

Find photo’s of Swell Surf camp on Flickr

Or watch our video’s on Vimeo

Want to join us this season?

There are some some spaces open, but not for very long, so best to send Martha a quick email via this page:

Http://www.swellsurfcamp.com/contact.html

See you soon!

Since we can only fit 24 people maximum in our purpose built surf camp in Cabarete, Dominican Republic, spots fill up quickly, sometimes months in advance.

Thinking about joining our surf camp for xmass? Make that 2012 since that weeks has been fully booked for months. That doesn’t mean that everything is all fully booked from januari till april, however to avoid disappointment , it’s best not to wait much longer to join us.

Ok, enough talking, here’s some pics of our place

Swell Surf Camp garden

The hammocks in our garden are ready for you

Pool lights and 122 LEd lights in the pool

Meet Jake, 1 of our surf instructors at our surf school.

We look forward to surfing with you this winter here in the Caribbean

You don’t need to stay in the snow, Cabarete is only 4 hours by ‘plane straight to Puerto Plata (airport code POP) and Swell surf camp is just 20 minutes taxi transfer.  Continental Airlines fly direct from Newark and Jet Blue flies direct from JFK.  American Airlines also fly to POP from JFK and Newark with a connection in Miami.  Come join us this Winter

I hope Hurricane Irene will be equally gentle for Hatteras or wherever it’s going to make landfall in the USA.

The surf lessons at Swell Cabarete Surf camp

So our new surf instructor arrived. Jake Armstrong Roberts is from a small coastal town in Australia. He enjoys good surf, but even more so he enjoys teaching people the fine art of surfing.

We monitored his first lesson and the new schedule and methodology he introduced and we are very impressed, good results ; safe lessons with quick progress for the clients.

Jake will be giving beginner and intermediate surf lessons , exclusively for Swell Surf Camp. Besides the surf instruction job, Jake will also be taking advanced surfers to spots that are off the beaten track, so for surf trips without crowds, Jake is your man.

Here’s some pics of Jake’s first lessons ( sorry for the not so pleasant water color, there’s still lots of sand floating in the water from hurricane Irene)

Practice on land

Some more tips

Constant feedback

Riding with style in the first hour

New surfers ‘created’

We are sure that for this coming winter Jake and Luciano are going to be teaching on the highest level possible, so our surf lessons at Encuentro are off the highest possible level, resulting in quick progress in a safe and fun way.

Hasta pronto

See you in the water

Swell Surf camp

We are going to keep it brief here today, since there’s fun surf here in Cabarete and some wind in the afternoon for kitesurfing so we’d rather be out than being stuck behind the Swell Surf camp computer.

What’s going on?

Well summer surf has been very good, lots of fun surfing days in Cabarete  with waves in the waist to head high range. For kitesurfing this has also been one of the best summers here in Cabarete in many years with steady trade winds.

We have a new surf instructor coming in a few days, he’ll be the first fully qualified Australian and BSA surf instructor in Cabarete. His name is Jake and we at Swell look forward to having him become part of the Swell Surf camp team.

Reviews?

Yes the reviews keep coming in on our surf camp. See the Tripadvisor Swell Surf Camp page

Video

Yes we had time to make a video with a compilation of pictures from our guests from the  first 1,5 years.

Ok, that’s it for now, don’t forget to hit the ‘LIKE’ button on the Surf camp’s facebook page

See you soon here in Cabarete

Swell Surf Camp

ps: regarding the title of this post: Best surf Camp? yes that’s what we strive to be

Well the summer is in full swing and it’s been a good one so far; we have been pretty much at full capacity at Swell for 95% of the time, with surfers, kitesurfers, windsurfers and paddle boarders, and the good things is that the conditions here in Cabarete have been great for everyone:

-Fun waves in the waist to shoulder high have been great for our beginner and intermediate surfers that go for lessons to Encuentro beach every morning.

-The Stand up paddle surfers have also been able to enjoy good SUP lessons in Cabarete bay.

-The trade winds are very cooperative this year with the last 2 months showing great winds for people learning to kitesurf and for intermediates practicing the jumping and other  freestyle moves.

-We haven’t had that many windsurfers in the last year but now there’s a few clients enjoying quality windsurf lessons at Cabarete Bay.

-We have a new Yoga teacher, who comes in at the camp at around 5.30 to do a sunset yoga session, which the clients really enjoy (I will try it in the coming weeks).

What else is going on?

Unfortunately for Swell our surf assistant Brock got an offer to sail around the Mediterranean  with one of or guests (that has been back at Swell 3 times already) so he took the offer and is now living the good life on a boat for a few months.

Martha our manager has been doing a great job in the last 6 months running Swell, and keeping all the clients happy, but since she hardly ever wanted a day off, she needed a break, and so she is off roaming Central America  for a few weeks, in the mean time Clare is running the camp again, which she really enjoys.

What else?

Norm is now our record holding guests with 4 return visits to Swell in 14 months, and we are confident that we’ll see him back in Cabarete doing more Kitesurfing before the year is over.

Fonzy our surf camp dog, loved by all guests, got sick a few weeks back, but now seems to be in full recovery.

Ok, that’s about it for now.

I’ll finish with a few pictures from Richard , a solo traveler from Holland who came to Swell for Surfing, kitesurfing, partying and every other activity we can throw at him has been making some xtremely fast progress with the kitesurfing lessons by Swell Staff memeber Luciano.

here’s some pics of Richard after a few hours of lessons

The wind forecast looks great for the next week, so don’t be surprised to see pics of Richard  doing some jumping before he leaves cabarete

Interested in joining us in the the Caribbean? Visit our website : http://www.swellsurfcamp.com

or join us on facebook: www.facebook.com/surfcamp

Hasta pronto

In no particular order:

1. The kitesurfing season has started here in Cabarete; the last few days we had great wind; 20 knots plus,  sunny skies and the semana santa crowds of the last week have all left the town.
2. The surf has been great too, solid waves in the 4-6′ range make for great early morning surf or SUP sessions at Encuentro.
3. Luciano Gonzalez, our surf and kite surf specialist once again won the Cabarete master of the Ocean competition, making it 4 in total ( he says he wants 10 title’s like Kelly Slater)
4. Our ‘new’ surf instructor Brock is still working out every day and looking very fit, his surf skills are also becoming very impressive, ( now he needs to learn to kitesurf, and maybe windsurf?)
5. The new huge solid oak wood table has arrived, and it’s a stunning masterpiece , right in the center of Swell Surf Camp
6. Clients keep sending rave reviews to tripadvisor about our place ( we don’t ask them to, and contrary to most other places in cabarete we offer no incentive for them to do so), see Swell reviews here
7. We have seen many return clients coming back for a 2nd, 3rd or even 4th time ( in 18 months of being open)
8. We had a couple that stayed with us, then moved to a what they thought was a ‘similar place to Swell’, after 2 days the clients came back to Swell, saying that this place at Encuentro was in absolutely no way similar to Swell, for comforts, vibe, quality and location.
9. It’s going to be a busy summer looking at the amount of reservations that are already in, certain summer weeks are already fully booked, so if you want to come, book asap.
10. Something new is in the making at Swell……more on this in a few weeks…..

The new table

Luciano with Swell’s windsurf rig ( is there a cooler sail in Cabarete? we think not)

Gonazalez taking his 4th Cabarete’s Master of the Ocean title.

• See what the country is like
• Surf some good waves
• See if we can learn things from the surf camps there
• See if Costa Rica might be a potential place for another Swell Surf camp location.

All 5 of us ( Clare,  Euan, Drew , Luciano and myself) were very eager to check it out after we heard many good things about it, and we had been drooling over some videos posted daily about the surf conditions in Costa Rica. We drove 3 hours  to Santo Domingo, DR and from there we flew to San Jose, Costa Rica. From there it was either a 7 hour drive or another flight. We opted for the flight with a very small plane. From there it was another 45 minute taxi drive.

After a lot of travel we arrived in Santa Teresa, Mal Pais on the Nicoya peninsula in Costa Rica

We were expecting a nice vibrant surf town similar to Cabarete, instead we found: a very  dusty road with a few hotels and restaurants, so that was the first disappointment. However we are all surfers so the waves were the most important aspect for us.

The next day the forecast showed that there was a head high south  swell running; should be good for some fun waves.

After 3 hours in the water, all of us caught about 3 waves each, and the average length of ride was about 1-2 seconds, pretty much all waves were close-outs.  Even Luciano Gonzalez, our Swell Surf camp in house surf instructor and 3 time master of the ocean winner, never managed to score any decent waves.

Hmm, the trip was not starting to look very good.

After a few days of very disappointing waves we decided to rent a car and start touring the area to see if there are any other good surf spots in this area of Costa Rica. After 3 days the only surfing we did was highway surfing. Most beaches were either close out waves when it gets over shoulder high, or small and very mushy, did I mention the ridiculous crowd levels?

Cut a long story short; we were very happy to be going back to our surf camp in Cabarete, since it made us realize once more what a great place The Dominican Republic is and why we see so many happy clients leaving us after their surf holiday (and returning a few months later for another trip to us). The north coast of the DR has so many great things to offer:

• Consistent year round surf for surfers of all levels
• No need to rent a car, from Swell everything can either be done by foot or with our surf transport
• Cabarete has great restaurants, from budget chicken man to very good french cuisine.
• Cabarete’s nightlife is superb.
• Getting to our place from the US is a lot easier with an international airport only 20 minutes away.
• Uncrowded surf spots, compared to the US or Costa Rica

I have taken surf trips to many different parts of the world in the last 20 years, and only 2  surf destinations are now on  my “never-again” lists; 1 is Morocco since I got very sick, and the other place is Costa Rica.

Ok, before I get a lot of people sending emails and commenting saying ” you shoulda gone here in CR” or “You went in the wrong time of the year” or “You are just trying to promote your business” .

Don’t bother, I am sure that at certain times of the year the waves in Costa Rica can be very good, but the whole 8 days we were there we never caught an ok wave. About the me trying to promote our place here in Cabarete: yes that’s my job, but I am not afraid to also say that Indonesia has better waves than the DR, but as far as to what 99% of our clients are looking for,  the DR delivers better conditions and more consistent surf year round.

Don’t let this hold you back from going to Costa Rica, but also be sure to check our place ( or any other place in this town) and you’ll realize what a magic place Cabarete is.

( PS: the photo at the top of the post is from a sunset in Costa Rica, and I have to admit that the sunsets are nicer in Costa Rica, than they are here).

See you soon in the Dominican Republic, or if you are going to Costa Rica: I hope you get a better surf experience then we did.

Check Swell Surf Camp to see what kind of package we can offer for your next surf holiday