beach, beach, and more beach

yesterday we packed up the car with the gals, the cooler, our snorkel gear, and the boogie board and headed to two of our finest beaches here - playa caleton & playa grande.

first stop was for some swimming and snorkeling at playa caleton. here's a shot of sheila, jessie, and willowe enjoying the dominican sunshine at playa caleton.



with playa caleton filling up and the big waves of playa grande calling us, we headed down the road to the second beach stop. we decided to set up camp at the far western end of the beach, a new spot for us. here's what the view off to the right looked like from where we were sitting. PRETTY SWEET BEACH!



turned out that there was a private party being held on the beach nearby to where we sat. i think it most likely was the NY group that had purchased the playa grande golf course & land. while we did not manage to sneak any food or beverage from the party, we did get some other fringe benefits. namely, a local dominican band played nearby us for a while (that was maybe good and bad) and some kitesurf instructors were there giving some kiting demos and lessons to the members of the private party. this enabled the gals to see this sport live, as there have been virtually no winds in cabarete and thus no kiters on display.

the big event of the day though were THE WAVES! how big, you ask? well, here's a picture that provides some perspective on size:



jessie and i had been in the water for a bit before sheila joined us. we had already figured out that the waves were rather large and mostly were best dealt with by diving under or bobbing to the top of them. when sheila joined and saw her first wave, i gave her the advice to either dive under it or try to bob up it. sheila chose neither....and decided to body surf it instead. well, you should have seen the look on sheila's face when she arrived back up to the surface after riding that wave in! it was a "WOW, holy cow!" face and bring on some more even though i might be in pain!

next thing i know, sheila is up on the beach, grabbing the boogie board! go sheila! we proceeded to have a blast! sometimes it felt like you would just get dropped off the wave head first as it was breaking, which made for some exhilarating moments where all you could do was hold your breath and hope for the best!

here are some boogie boarding shots of sheila and me: