Zephaniah Kingsley, a Florida planter, moved his mixed-race family and 53 people he had freed from his plantations onto an estate here in the late 1830s, and the village that grew from it stayed obscure for about 150 years. Canadian windsurfer Jean Laporte opened the first school on the bay in 1984; kitesurfers followed in the mid-1990s, and the first kite school opened in 1999. Cabarete Bay, Kite Beach and Playa Encuentro line a few kilometres of Atlantic coast and have hosted World Cup windsurfing, PKRA and WKL kite events and the Master of the Ocean. Behind the town, the Lagunas Cabarete y Goleta reserve protects a karst landscape of sinkholes, mogotes and mangroves.
Nights sit around 23°C and afternoons around 33°C.
Cabarete barely changes season: afternoons sit around 31°C and nights around 21°C most of the year.
Some June days reach 36°C.
There is a clear wet season from October – May, peaking in November with around 258 mm. The driest month is June, with about 54 mm.
Wind is a factor: July averages 21 km/h, enough to notice on a terrace or a bike. Air quality is worth watching: July averages an AQI of 56, while November clears to 36.
Days stretch to about 13.2 hours of light in June and shrink to 10.8 in December — something to weigh if you work to a fixed timezone.
For what you're after, the best months in Cabarete are June – September. Expect fast internet (78 Mbps) and a moderate cost of living (about €1200 a month).
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