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Written by rick
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Monday, 21 July 2003 |
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El Yaque, Margarita
Is a smallish resort, situated just 10 minutes drive from the airport.
WINDSUR
FING.
The wind blows cross shore from left to right, reputedly for 350 days per year.
The windiest time of year to go is November to May, during June the winds tend to die down to force 3-4.
At the end of June 2003 I sailed, in planing conditions, every afternoon for at least 3 hours on kit between 5.2 to 7.4 metres. The locals claim April/May conditions are usually mornings 5m afternoons 4 to 4.5m.
The sailing is mainly windblown chop (similar to W.K. in a southerly) on the inside developing to swell the further out you go. It is possible to sail within your depth up to around 300 metres out, the seabed is sand, so combined with the warm water, this must be one of the best places to sort out your waterstart/freestyle technique. Keep clear of the patches of seaweed, as it is inhabited by sea urchins.
There are 5 hire centres on the beach, stocking all the usual toys.
KITESURFING.
Is very popular & there is a separate launch beach for them that you catch a boat to, there is a charge for this but as with most things in El Yaque it is relatively cheap, Kite lessons appear to be 220 US dollars for 8 hours. During peak season kiting is not allowed on the main beach between 09:30 & 17:30 & a good job too, as the sailing area is not all that large. During lessons you are not allowed to practice your kite flying technique on the beach as its, rather sensibly, thought to be too dangerous for the flyer.
ACCOMODATION.
We stayed at Casa Rita through Planet Windsurf, this is at the top of a hill an easy 10 minute walk from the beach. It was o.k. although the aircon was too noisy to leave on at night, people stopping in other hotels had this complaint also.
EATING/DRINKING.
A beer in most bars is around 40 pence, VERY large shorts & cocktails are 1/1.50.
A good bar at night for raggae/latin/salsa music & dancing is Los Surf Piratos.
A taxi into Porlamar to a club will cost about 4 each way. Remember, its Spanish hours, 10 pm to early.
Food is varied cuisine catering for all taste.
MONEY.
Take US dollars in cash, the official exchange rate to Bolivares is 1600 but shops will change money at around 2200. You would have to go to Porlamar to change travellers cheques.
Food & drink etc for 2 weeks came to 600.
All round a good location, with consistent wind, however with no waves ask yourself would you get bored with 2 weeks bump & jump or blasting in the sunshine or not?
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Couldn\'t belive how cheap things were.....
All the beach bars tend to have some form of \"happy hour\" so it was possible to get a bottle of Polar beer & a rum&coke for 60p !!! between 5 & 7pm
Food was large american portions and cheap, especially the sandwiches for lunch sold on the beach, at the leawood side there was a bar selling wraps with curried chicken which were particully tasty.
Food at night was Fish, seafood, big steaks, texmex & pizzerias.
Bottle of Rum was less than 2 quid.
So easy to refuel cheaply & easily.
My usual daily pattern was to go out kitesurfing with skyriders in the boat in the morning (which cost about 15euros for the boatride & 2-3hours supervision), have lunch & windsurf all afternoon.
Sail sizes I used were 4.5 to 5.8.
The wind started about 9.00am where a 6.5 metre was needed (so good time to go kiting, as not a fan of big sails & boards) & by lunchtime a 5 or 5.5m was about right with a 80l board.
its shallow for a good 500m where its close chop so like sailing over corrigated iron, then it gets deeper & you get swell with some nice ramps.
There is some real talent here as its perfect for freestyle, though its also a great place to progress into using harness & footstraps as the wind is so reliable and water warm.
sailed mainly in beach shorts, though used a rash vest & sunnys for kiting as I was learning at the time & spent quite some time in the water
My hands really shredded, though there are loads of Aloe Vera plants you can cut and apply the gel to your sores as the most effective post surf remedy.
Apart from food & drink, there is not mush else to spend money on in El Yaque as there are only 2 surf shops, 2 grocers & an internet cafe, where it was dirt cheap to call the UK from & good place to change US dollars
There are some excusions that are probably worth doing, Angel falls, rain forest etc.
Spent a morning on a surf trip, & went out on foam beginner boards which cost about $6 all in.
The guys at Club Margarita were very friendly & helpful and didn\'t exclude us, because we were with club mistral either.
Ok, there were no waves, though some reasonable swell further out, inbetween it was quite choppy, though it was great for blasting and racing people and watching the local hotshots attempting the latest freestyle moves.
Plan to go again, though probably going to spend some time in coche which has better kiting conditions, though the flight from manchester doest operate around the march/april time anymore.