Hurricanes and "kitesurfing"

The image of Dominican Republic is usually sunny, warm, beaches of white sand and especially in Cabarete, kitesurfing! Well, these were our thoughts also. When we arrived in Cabarete our Airbnb host Ralph told us that it's not raining often and that it's mostly sunny and quite windy even when it's off-season. The next day we had quite heavy showers and it was cloudy. We heard Ralph and his employee talking something about hurricanes and we asked about it, and yes, there was hurricane Matthew close to DR. That was not a good news for kitesurfing. When we went to Gokite, the staff said also that the winds can be anything and that it can't be predicted how Matthew effects them. Markus left all his kite gears to Gokite so that they would be there ready if the wind picks up. The first day gave some hope! There was a light wind (6-7m/s) and Markus got some kitesurfing even if it was light it was better than nothing. The second day the wind picked up in the afternoon and Markus went for a few hours session to kite. This time the wind was already much better, around 9-10m/s and perfect fore Markus new 9m2 Core Kite. And if there are no stones on the beach, Finn hit the fin ;) Markus dropped his board so that the fin peeled the skin from Markus' foot. It didn't go deep, but deep enough for few drops of blood and a bit blue foot... The foot got time to heal, because that was the last day with wind in Cabarete. For real! Four hours of kitesurfing in 10 days in Cabarete! :/

Still optimistic about the wind!

Had to fly the kite in the light wind

Trying to do something. Tried also 'unhooked' but there wasn't enough wind for that.

Finn hit the fin. Of course we didn't remember to take the photo straight away. This is taken on the third day.

This kind of weather was not normal in Cabarete. Matthew had messed up the weather totally. It was raining every day, and the showers were quite heavy. We followed NHC/NOAA every day to see how Matthew moves. We noticed that we were on the tropical storm watch area. For a week we followed the news about M and Markus got even a text message from the local phone company that we have to follow the news about M and be prepared for possible evacuation. The tropical storm from M did hit Santo Domingo in South of DR and there were four casualties in the South. Luckily we got just a bit stronger winds the night M passed next to DR. M did hit Haiti hard and there were over 800 dead and tens of thousands lost their homes. We noticed that the news didn't report about M before it was closer to US. At least the Finnish news started to tell about M after it hit Haiti, and one of the biggest news papers in Finland mentioned  M the first time when the US told about evacuation of Florida. This is quite sad, that a poor country that suffers from a hurricane is left without or with just few lines in the news. 

We were in the yellow spot in the North DR

Hurricane Matthew. (picture from CNC3)

When M had just passed Haiti, DR and Jamaica, we noticed that there there was a small hurricane Nicole, and a possible new storm close to DR. We came to DR a bit later to avoid the Hurricane peak season, so what the heck are all these storms!? Nicole turned into a small hurricane and it's moving on the ocean and not threatening any country. The other one didn't grow even to a tropical storm. In a way this was quite interesting to follow the path of a hurricane and this was the closest we have been to a major hurricane and hopefully the last time! Now Markus continues to wait for nicer winds for kitesurfing. Fingers crossed for winds! ;) 

 When one has passed, you don't want to see a picture like this...

Still waiting...! ;)