Fish tacos after big surf? Yes please

The surf was pumping yesterday. Solid double overhead sets. We got two sessions in at Encuentro, and our group got some phenomenal waves.

On our way home from our second session, Cameron called his fisherman and asked if he had any fish.

5 minutes later the fisherman showed up on our doorstep with a massive cubera snapper for Cameron and Jesse to inspect:

Speared this morning:

The fish looked great so we paid him the cash and he went out on the lawn and fileted it for us:

The last filet before getting sliced up and placed in Jesse's famous beer batter:

Chef Jesse, running the show. The beer battered fish melts in the mouth:

A little cracked pepper, salt, and lime and they are ready to go. Add some freshly made slaw and pick de gallo, and you have the perfect dinner after a day of big surf!

Cultural commentary: what can you carry on a MotoConcho?

Before we begin this installment of Cultural Commentary, a little housekeeping. What is a MotoConcho? Sometimes just called a Moto, or a Concho, these mini motorcycles are one of the most popular means of transport in the DR. Everybody has one, including Cameron. They are essentially what we would call "retro" motorcycles; low back, small engine motorcycles that act as solo transport, taxi cab, family station wagon, and delivery vehicle depending on your situation. Cabarete is filled with motos driven by young entrepreneurs who swarm the roads looking for tourists who need rides to the beach. We required their services several times and always were impressed with their driving skill and courtesy.

What you notice right away, after the sheer quantity of conchos on the road, is their payload. Before we came down, we were told to look out for "interesting" cargo. Man oh man, have we seen some concho cargo. Most of which did not get photographed because we either didn't have a camera on us or couldn't get the shot in time. All of the photos you are about to see are from a single day. About 2 hours on the road total. And this is not showing the dozens of amazing conchos I wasn't able to shoot in time. So with such a small sample size showing so much crazy sh*t, you can imagine what the overall population is like when you are simply driving down the street and taking all the sites in.

So without further ado, I present to you a montage of concho cargo from 5 November 2013, in the vicinity of Cabarete, DR.

This guy is carrying a massive box of some sort. It is not tied down. Look closely and you can see he has his left arm bent, with his hand behind his head holding it: 

Two young girls coming home from school:

Dude driving with 2 by 4's resting on the back seat. These pieces of wood were about 6 feet long. Again, one hand on the throttle, one hand on the cargo:

This kid was hanging on to a propane tank:

When Jesse and Cambria went across the street to get a papaya smoothie, I had 5 minutes to take concho photos. Here is the first good one- dad + mom + infant swaddled in mom's lap:

Next was a dude and his buddy carrying a chainsaw:

This is what they call a Dominican Car Seat. Check how young this kid is:

Others, like Jesse, Angela, Cameron, and Jack have all seen gnarlier stuff than this. They don't bat an eye unless there's at least four humans on a concho and even still, it only gets interesting if there is also livestock on board. I've heard of coffins on conchos, lawn mowers on conchos, passengers with IV drip bags on conchos, and my personal favorite, conchos carrying other conchos as cargo.

That is all.

Dominican road trip

We woke up Tuesday to flat surf conditions, but beautiful weather otherwise. So we had a lazy morning, cooking a big egg breakfast and checking the Internet. All was well on the Internet so we decided to take a trip up the coast. Cambria and I didn't know what to expect. Turned out to be a great day. This is what a lot of the road looked like:

The wind was still taking a sabbatical so the muggy conditions had to be battled using unconventional techniques: note how Jesse could only get enough air flow by keeping the van door wide open whilst  

barreling down the highway:

After about 45 minutes and a delicious papaya smoothie at a roadside stand, we pulled into a little grassy parking area. A simple shack stood between us and some beautifully manicured gardens. We were at "Dudu Pools" a private recreation area with natural freshwater pools, caves, gardens, ornery ostriches, and a non-regulation outdoor volleyball court. 

We were there to jump in the pools.

After we paid our 100 peso entry fee ($2) we walked through the shack to see this list of banned items. No guns, knives, or hookas. Hmmmmm. Hookas? Is that really a common thing to pack in with you as you jump into freshwater pools? Apparently so. I still have so much to learn about the Dominican Republic!

The pools were incredible. Water temp was about 66 degrees F, so cool enough to refresh our sweat drenched bodies, but not too cold. There was a do it yourself zip line that was really fun. Here is Cambria just after takeoff:

About 35 feet off the water, the drop from the zip line to the water was high enough to get your heartbeat up and roll the windows down a few times before smacking the emerald water below:

Not content to simply zip line into the pool, Cameron ran off the cliff and hucked an impressive gainer. This spot is about 40 feet high:

After our refreshing session at the pools, we continued east along the coast. We pulled into a little beach area called La Entrada. Tourist population: zero. Local population: 12. So we effectively increased the population by 50%. Here you can see Ron Burgundy, aggressively parked on the beach, comfortable in its natural surroundings. You can also see the spot where we dragged the plastic table out to have lunch:

This was the scene on the beach during lunch. Epic:

If you like coconut groves and clean whitesand beaches, you would be in heaven here:

Before we committed to this spot for lunch, Jesse went across the street to the little mangrove spot to check on the quality of the fish:

Turns out that the local fisherman had just caught the parrotfish and was in the middle of de-scaling them when we walked up. As fresh as it gets. Jesse asked a few questions in Espanol, checked the fish, and nodded his head. We had found our spot:

The lunch table. No further description necessary. One of the best lunches of our whole trip:

Jesse had been talking about "triple fried parrotfish on the beach" since we were in France together. He would get visibly excited just talking about it. Cambria and I were a bit skeptical, given our experience in Fiji, where you don't shoot parrotfish because they either taste bad or have siguatera or help keep the beaches sandy or all of the above. Jesse, as usual, was totally right on the money. These were some of the tastiest fish we'd had all trip:

During lunch, a family rolled up on the beach in a pimped out station wagon about 50 feet down from us. They were blasting some high quality salsa music. They started dancing in front of their car. Then the dad stripped down to his "Dominican Swimsuit" which are just tightee whitees. Here is Jesse checking out the party scene:

The man in his Dominican Swimsuit:

I couldn't help myself. I had to go dance with these rather hefty ladies. In truth, Jesse dared me, so in order to maintain manhood and fearless image, I danced it up:

After lunch on the beach at La Entrada, we went to a gorgeous spot called "Preciosa." Full forest all the way down to he beach. Here is the path we took to get down:

The beach was deserted. See that point off in the distance? Just in front of that is a shipwreck. The good kind. A 16th century Spanish galleon. It is covered in sand and has not been excavated by treasure hunters yet. Who knows how much treasure is out there:

The view in the opposite direction. Incredibly picturesque:

We had a great day in the DR. Our surf muscles got a much needed rest for the upcoming swell.

Dominican surf contest

On our second night in the country, we went to a party at the hotel next door. Turns out it was the pre-party for a two day masters (35 years and older) surf contest to be held at the main spot a few miles down the road. 

Being a freshly minted 35 year old, and having spent the past few months focused on surfing, I figured what the heck. At least I'd get a free t shirt. So I forked over my $40 and signed up for the longboard division.

Now, I am usually pretty confident in my longboarding ability. But a few factors combined to make this a challenging event for me. First and foremost, I had never surfed the spot before. Every surf spot in the world is unique, and has its own look and feel. It's own lineup. It's own personality on different tides. It usually takes at least a full session to start to figure a place out. For me, my first day surfing would be with a contest jersey on:

The next challenging factor was that I had never surfed the board before. Jesse was kind enough to loan me his 9'1 Herbie Fletcher high performance longboard for the contest. Great board. But it usually takes a few waves to figure out a board. For me, it was during the contest. Then add in the fact that the announcer was speaking Spanish, along with the other competitors in the water, and you get the idea of how I was a major underdog in this contest.

The contest was held at Encuentro, a reef break with about 4 distinct peaks. The contest zone was at the main righthander. Here is what the beach looked like in the afternoon:

There were 16 competitors in the longboard division. I made it through the first round on day 1 by getting 2nd in my heat. I surfed terribly and felt like the judges gave me an inflated score. The semifinals weren't until day 2 so we surfed for fun a few peaks up and had INCREDIBLE surf for over 3 hours. Hot, glassy, head high, uncrowded, consistent...all of the magic adjectives for a surfer. I surfed well during that session and got my confidence up. Cambria also surfed really well and had the most fun she'd had since New Zealand. 

So the next morning we got up early, got to the beach at 7am, and I had my semifinal heat. I got 2nd in that heat too which was enough to advance me to the final which was held around lunchtime. I surfed well in the final, but knew that the local guy who ended up winning was getting better waves than me and was just surfing better. 

I ended up getting 2nd overall. Here is the award ceremony with me on the podium to the right:

The contest was very well run. On time, great announcing, and fair judging. The vibe on the beach was positive and lighthearted, not cut-throat. I got a killer trophy that I'll have forever to remember the DR:

Overall, I'm really stoked I signed up for the contest. Big thanks to Cam and Jesse for all of the logistical and on-beach support!!!

After 3 days in the DR

The Dominican Republic (aka "The DR") has been action-packed so far.

We arrived from Miami and Cameron was ready for us. Here we are loading up his mean machine, a four wheel drive, diesel Toyota minivan nicknamed "Ron Burgundy." Ron is a trusty and tough little fella. And because he looks so similar to the local taxis ("guah-guah's"), we get hailed by pedestrians on the side of the road:

While Jesse has his own place in Cabarete, Cameron was nice enough to invite us all to stay at his place, which is an incredible apartment on the beach. It reminds me of Bill's Mexican hacienda at the end of "Kill Bill"

The deck, the lawn, the beach:

Some Presidentes to welcome us to the DR:

Cameron is a professional kiter. There are a few large format photos in the house that are incredible. Here he is in Indonesia:

And another, but I forget the location:

Cameron has a serious collection of water toys:

Two fellow pro kiters are also staying with us at Cameron's. Jake and Andre are super cool guys from Antigua. Jesse actually recognized Andre in the Miami airport and asked if he was heading to Cabarete, and Andre said yeah, and that he was also staying with Cameron. Andre is one of the top kiters in the world and is very humble and down to earth. It has been a lot of fun living with this crew for the past few days. They are here for a full month. 

Here's Jake (left) and Andre (right), enjoying the delicious Mexican food at Gordito's which is just a 5 minute walk from Cameron's:

Walking up the beach, we saw this game of beach baseball going:

Jesse knows this local fisherman. Today he had fresh lobster. We are trying to get some conch or grouper or tuna, so we keep checking with him each day for the morning catch:

After our morning surf sessions we make egg tacos (of course):

Cameron has an eclectic cast of friends. They are all really nice and fun to hang with. Here is Jesse with "Kissy" a London DJ who is in Cabarete for a week taking time off from his US tour. We had some colorful conversation with him:

 

Poker night at Cameron's. 500 peso buy-in, or about US$12.50:

Pro kiters, a London house music DJ, French businessmen, Israeli internet entrepreneurs, Jesse, and me:

We've been having a blast in the DR and really appreciate all of Cameron's generous hospitality.