Zane Schweitzer: 2014 Master Of the Ocean Champion
Just before finishing the Sunset Beach Pro, I got invited to come out to Dominican Republic to compete in The Master of The Ocean Surf, Stand Up Paddle, Windsurf and Kitesurf competition!! I jumped at the chance to be able to compete in such a fun event that encompasses all the ocean sports I live for. I only had 2 days after finishing the SUWT to head back to Maui and pack all the toys for my first trip to the Dominican Republic. I was honored to be invited to this ocean sports event and participate with talented Watermen from all over the world! My good friend and big wave surfer and windsurf champion Francisco Porcella was heading to the event as well so I flew with him out from Maui. We got picked up from the airport 14 hours later and put up in the nicest Hotel in Cabarete, full rockstar status! Marcus Bohm, the event organizers, met us there and welcomed us to Cabarete by giving us a quick tour of the town, and introduced us to the staff and team. Francisco and I now knew we made a great choice in coming to D.R and that were going to have a epic time!
Our first day in Cabarete I got to go out in the water for a kite and windsurf right in front of our hotel with Francisco Porcella and Fiona Wylde! Here in DR it is such a similar feel to being home in Maui. The island people have so much aloha and are very talented at ripping at all the ocean sports, and the weather, land and nature are almost the same as Hawaii with consistent year round warm weather and consistent wind and waves!
After a great day on the water, Finja and Micah, the event coordinator and beach marshal gave Francisco, Friona and I a killer tour of Cabarete and we got some good local food! Here the local gindz are great, a lot of fresh chicken and fish, rice, beans and fresh fruits! The town is beautiful and reminds me of a cross between Hawaii and Brazil or Tahiti, with one road all the way around the coast and life revolves around the ocean! But slowly as we started to finish dinner Francisco and I saw what DR has what Maui does not have – a lot of killer Disco parties right on the beach packed with people from all around the world dancing and partying on Vacation. This is very different from my life on Maui.
Our first full day in Cabarete I got to meet up with my Dad’s good friend and old school freestyle master Gary Eversole! He lent me some kite equipment for my trip here and set us up on a killer 5 mile down winder run from our Hotel to the event site in Encuentro Beach! This was a great opportunity for me to get some time on the water kiting and practicing a bit for the competition, since I have only been kiting like 6 times before this trip. Im gonna need a few practice runs if I want to be in contention to be the overall Master of the Ocean!
We had an awesome opening ceremony at Concho loco restaurant in town where we had dinner with special guests from the Dominican government and sports administration to introduce them to the ocean Athletes and be apart of our festivity!
I got to meet a lot of the local boys here and made some new friends that are really great people, killer surfers and ocean athletes participating in everything, Just like our handful of Maui boys! Brandon Sanford is a professional surfer from DR that puts on his own awesome kids clinics and local competitions taking advantage of all the local talent here and helping the kids and surfers to expose themselves and get there foot into the door with competitive surfing! He is my age a shares a lot of the same passions as me; surfing, windsurfing, Stand Up Paddle, kiting and giving back to the community by sharing the love for the sports and supporting the local kids with a team and contests! Also got to meet professional surfer Rickardo Delgado from Puerto Rico, World Renown Professional photographer Tony Roberts, Pedro Fernandez and many other great friends!
Every day we were at the beach competing all day in all four different sports; surfing and stand up paddle surfing in the morning, then once the wind picks up around 1, straight into Windsurfing and Kitesurfing! A perfect day in my eyes!!
I was so impressed with all the local athletes like Brandan, Dauri, Manuel, Luciano, Michal and many more who could compete at such a high level in all the sports! It is rare to find such talent in all sports. Here in Cabarete it is such an ideal place to master ocean sports, and the whole town revolves around the surf and ocean culture!!
I got to start of the event great advancing through all the divisions and having non stop action for the 6 day event! I came into this event a bit nervous about the kite surfing part since I have not practiced much or even kited more than a half dozen times in my life!! I ended up placing 3rd in my first kite heat but it was still enough to give me a great start into the event and stay in contention for the overall win, even though I did not make the Kite final!
After 6 full days of competition and non stop multi sport action I was finally starting to feel a bit tired, after so many full action packed days of competition and event gatherings after the end of every days competition.
I ended up finishing 1st place in three of four of the divisions – 1st in Stand Up Paddle, 1st in Surf and 1st in the Windsurfing Division! At the last ceremony and closing party the tension was tight between all the athletes, everyone eager to hear what the overall standings were and who would be crowned the 2014 Master of the Ocean! They also announced the winners of the Team event and the Expression Sessions, I placed 1st the Expression Surf and 1st in the Expression Session for Stand Up Paddle! For the team portion of the event, I had a awesome team with Caroline Surf, Denny JoOrd’dan and Fiona Wylde! Fiona competed in the Kiting making it all the way to the team final, Caroline also killed it making it far in the Team Surf, Denny is a local windsurf ripper and he killed it in the team Windsurf for us, and I made 1st in the Team Stand Up Paddle which overall put us in 3rd for the Team event!!! Everyone knew it was really tight between Francisco, Luciano and I for the Overall title. Luciano is a multiple Master of the Ocean Champion and Francisco Porcella killed it in the event and made it to the finals of all four of the divisions. After everything was tallied up though, my three 1st place finishes was just enough to make me the 2014 Master of The Ocean!!! It was an epic event and truly one of the highlights of my career because I got to compete in every sport I love as an overall Waterman.
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