PKRA Cabarete: The Festivities continue in the DR, with a day of rest for Bruna and Alvaro

Friday June 29th, 2007

-Stacey Fonas

Friday Morning

After a night filled with merry-making and joy, I'm never sure what I'm going to find when I turn on my camera and start downloading my pictures. Right now is one of those moments. The computer tells me I have 38?? Looks like I was pretty busy. I guess I'll soon find out what happened. At this point, I'm not really remembering too well ...

So ... last night, Gavin, photographer by day, chef by night, decided to cook a bunch of us dinner, an elaborate two-day-process Thai coconut soup. One person we forgot to invite was Lilo, who works at Laurel's school. However, after a couple of passionfruit caipirinhas, the shadow of this vase started to look EXACTLY like Lilo, so it was almost as if he were there ... he just didn't get any soup.

After taking this one picture of Alvaro, who was trying to win the Best Twins Model Search ... "It's only for the girls? That's not fair! I want to enter too" ...

... I put my camera away until the end of the evening, out of respect to the chef. People seem to run in terror when they see me coming with my camera, imagining themselves on a website somewhere, accompanied by scathing commentary. This is a reaction I see quite frequently.

So all I got were the remains of the evening ...

... and a room full of empty people.

After saying goodbye to Laurel and ShayShy (who had to get home to put their "son" to bed), we headed over to a party at the Kitelounge on Kite Beach. Seeing Shay's outfit again this morning reminds me of a series of pictures I keep forgetting to do, called "Fashions of the PKRA." This particular outfit would be titled "The Flaming Wonder avec Chien."

Turns out, the "KiteLounge" was my first place of residence in the DR, pre Casa de Carmen.

I shared the backhouse here, by the road, with a family of cockroaches. Being back at the ol' homestead brought back some wonderful memories: my "on the lam" American neighbor, the "ladies of the evening" still on the breakfast porch in the morning ... ah, the ghetto-fabulous underside of the DR.

With the recent success of his Garden Art Gallery in the Gorge, which specializes in Gnomes and Flamingos, Dave Tyburski, a past winner of the PKRA Cabarete, is once again Man of the Hour. Hege and Tybo:

Tybo, pictured here with his bodyguard, will soon begin filming his new kite-specific training video titled "Taibo with Tybo" which will soon have you doing old-school favorites like board offs, deadmen, and danglepasses with ease. An alternative title for the film: "Dangling with Dave."

Alvaro's entertainment factor has been in direct proportion to his grasp of the English language. He soon informed me that my "sister" ... or my look-alike ... was sitting down at one of the tables. Apparently, this is how I look to Alvaro.

To prove my point, I had to jump in to show that I do not look ANYTHING like her AT ALL. ALVARO!!!! Jeez!

Then, this random guy comes walking by our little group. Much to my surprise, Alvaro reaches out, grabs his arm, and casually pushes him into the pool. Much to Alvaro's surprise, this is what happens to people who casually push people into pools.

Just kidding. Turns out they're actually friends. But I think it's pretty true that if you're a top-ranked kiteboarder at a PKRA event, you have a much better chance of not getting beat up when you throw innocent bystanders into the pool.

Then, when I started seeing double again, I hopped onto a motoconcho and went home.

Friday Kiteboarding Results

On Friday, Bruna and Alvaro did not have to compete ... they're saving the finals for Saturday. Dragging the contest out is good for the competitors who have to work their back onto the podium, but not so good for the competitors who are already in the top 4 spots. If you're one of the top 4, you want everyone coming up against you to be as tired as possible. But because they're dragging it out, everyone has a chance to rest and recover.

Generally, they'll do the contest as quickly as possible, trying to finish while there's still wind, but because there's wind here, there is no reason to rush, especially since there will be a bigger crowd on Saturday. Good for them, not so good for "us." Aaron, as expected, sailed easily through his heats, and is now in a good position to work his way back onto the podium, have beaten out Kevin Langeree. Further, Youri Zoon is out of the contest, due to an injured knee as a result of a badly landed front mobe.

First possible start today is 1 PM, after the 12:30 Skipper's Meeting, which will pit Hadlow against Rondini, and Rui Meira against Madison Van Heurke, to see who will advance to battle the top 4 finishers of the singles, against Mallory Delavillemarque first, then Dominican local Alex Soto (which should be a very interesting heat), then onto Alvaro and finally, Ariel Colniel. It's not going to be an easy day, but it should be an exciting one.

For the girls, it'll be Audrey Meyer from Dare2Fly, with her impressive arsenal of guy-power kiteloops, against Ania Grzelinska, then up through the ranks of the top 4: Karolina, Angela, Gisela (who will most likely be on a mission from hell) and finally Bruna.

Stay tuned for the results ...