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

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.

Nice title huh?
Well clearly we think so, and it’s good to see that our clients that have been visiting us in the last 8 months agree with us. The reviews of Swell Cabarete Surf camp have been great, we hear the feedback from the clients when they are with us in Cabarete, by email when the leave, on our Swell Surf Camp facebook page and on Review sites like tripadvisor ( were we even had some locals competitors post ridiculous false reviews, but fortunately they were flagged quickly by tripadvisor staff).

We are very happy with the kind words of our clients, and even happier when they have been returning in large numbers for a second (or even 3rd) visit back in 7 months.

So by the looks of it, it’s going to be a very happy and busy winter season with certain weeks already pretty much fully booked already, so if you are reading this and are thinking about coming down this 2010/2011 surf season in Cabarete; send an enquiry to Swell cabarete surf camp sooner rather than later to avoid disappointmen!

There’s another thing that makes me personally very happy and that is how the garden is growing, it’s really looking great.
Here’s some pics from the last week

Swell Surf camp

More Surf camp

And even More surf camp garden

happy surf camp client

Ok, forecast looks great for the next week, new camera should be back from the repair, so good pics to follow.
Oh and this is what i got up to today:
Testing the new waterproof GoPro camera ( expect to see a lot of action shots this winter from it)

Windsurfing in Cabarete

Hasta Pronto

team Swell Surf camp

Or do you want to have a comfortable surf holiday with nice beds, clean surroundings and have surf lessons from an instructor that actually knows how to surf (in fact surfs very well)?

OK, in the last paragraph I am talking about our place and the first example, well a few people in this town know who I am referring to.

Here’s some pictures we took this morning of our guests, most of them went surfing. Some of them are already very experienced, some of them are completely new to the sport of surfing. One thing they had in common, they all had a blast.
The waves were small today at Encuentro, but it was glassy, not very crowded , warm, and mostly sunny, until one cloud came and brought spectacular rain and rainbow with it.

Luciano was working hard again as well giving the surf lessons

Mother and son going surfing together

The whole family surfing togther:

Jay showing off his California style:

The youngest family member, but he rips it up in the surf:

Swell surf camp and the dogs:

More fun summer surf on the way this week, Swell is pretty much fully booked for the next weeks, so should be very good vibes and hopefully some good waves for the surfers and some wind in the afternoon for the kitesurfers.
Going to cabarete on a surf holiday? Don’t be fooled by imitators: Swell is the only purpose built surf camp in cabarete; by and for surfers.

Http://www.swellsurfcamp.com

Swell is from NE direction and 13 seconds, so should produce some very good surfable waves here in Cabarete. We are thinking about going over to surf preciosa on wednesday, small crew, maybe Danniel a professional photographer from Canada, who will probably the designated surf photographer for Swell Cabarete surfing camp.

Quick update on the construction of our surf hotel in Cabarete
-Floor in the main area is being finished today with polishing
-Building will be painted this week
-Garden is looking nice green and tropical
-Bathroom fittings are all in by the end of the week as well.
-Kitchen should be done mid next week.

Here’s some pictures of Preciosa, as you can see, when it’s good , it’s real good.

After almost 5 hours of back-breaking and sweaty work, we had unloaded 4 very large pallets of items and checked the contents of 22 more boxes.  Driving backwards and forwards between Ocean One and Swell we have stored many of the items in the garage of a good friend of mine who was kind enough to offer (thanks Claire).

Nest Tuesday, I am told that the rest of our shipment will arrive.

Things are moving very quickly at the camp now; there’s a team of 25 or more people working there on electrics, plastering, etc.  We are always impressed by how hard working the Haitian men are – they are mixing cement by hand all day long.   It’s amazing; standing right in the sunshine and bending for hours on end.  Right now, the air temperature is around 100 degrees – we don’t know how they do that and stay so cheerful.; respect.

It’s been a busy trip for both of us in diffferent ways and we have enjoyed it, but both of us are looking forward to getting back to each other, our home, our dogs and our surf camp project.

It will be the last trip we make outside of the Dominican Republic for a while as from now on, our focus will be completely on preparation to open Cabarete’s newest and coolest budget accommodation.

Hasta Pronto…….

Today, we will be going back for more planting - 5 more Royal Palms and 2 Coco Palms will arrive this afternoon and then later, we meet with a lighting specialist to see what special effects we can make for the lighting of the pool and the gardens.

The new Swell Surf Camp website is now online and can be seen here , and we thought we’d add a blog to keep you up to date on everything that is Swell Surf Camp related, like the construction (for now) special events, special prices, pictures etc.

• Construction on Swell Surf camp was started about 8 weeks ago, and the progress that the builder has made so far is phenomenal. They are basically putting the first floor roof up this week.
• Since the launch, our website has “won” 2 web design awards from CSS drive and Unmatched Style which I , as the designer, am very pleased about. Clare gets equal amount of credit for giving good feedback during the design process as well as being a great text writer.
• Clare and myself have started doing paddle surfing here (SUP), since that’s a sport we also want to promote at Swell Surf camp. We found it a great sport and also realise that cabarete is an ideal spot for it. Muscles have been sore form it the last 2 days, but we are definitely going to continue.

Now I am going to make sure that this Blog gets a good look and then Clare will probablly take over, since she has turned into the inhouse blogging expert and can write way better than I can.

Hasta Pronto, Jeroen