Week 29;May 24 –May 31 The weather has changed and we are finally on the way to Puerto Rico. We left Samana at 3:20am Sunday morning with Sim and Rosie on Alianna and arrived at Miches, a good anchorage, by 9:00am. If you want to move east, the best time to do it is late night or early morning because the easterly trade winds die down then. If you’re lucky, you get a land breeze off the coast that will counteract the trades and you can actually sail. We enjoyed a long walk on the beach at Miches with all the boaters who were there with us. We found sea bean hearts, hamburger beans and even wild orchids. Chris Parker runs a weather service for boaters and we’ve been listening to him every day for weeks waiting for a good weather window to cross the Mona Passage to Puerto Rico. Tuesday is the day he’s been predicting would be good. Now we’re staged to make the crossing on Tuesday and guess what. Chris Parker’s house in Florida with all his computers and single side band equipment was hit by lightning! He won’t be broadcasting the weather on Monday or Tuesday. We’re on our own to interpret whatever weather we can download to our computers with our satellite phones. Monday at 6:30pm, we left and motor-sailed along the DR coast until Tuesday morning. It was slow going. We never did get the night lee or sea breeze of the land and there was often a ½ to 2 knot current against us. We motor-sailed all day Tuesday and Tuesday night. At times the seas were a little rough. Linda managed to cook another meal with the stove gimbaled with the pot clamps on to hold things on the stove. She had to belt herself in so she had hands free to work. This is not her favorite job on the boat, but she had proved we can cook while under way if we need to. The seas settled down around 9pm Tuesday and we had a comfortable ride into Puerto Rico, arriving in Boqueron harbor around 4:00am Wednesday morning. We anchored in the middle of the bay for the night and moved closer to shore the next morning.
Our first morning in Puerto Rico, Jim and Linda slept in and Jennifer (who had slept the entire night) woke up early and started her school work on her own. Wow! Now that’s worth noting! Later in the day we got a ride to US Customs and checked in. What a slow process. They must have looked us up in every database they had access to and double checked all of our information. They even asked Linda what she got for her birthday in 1997. That was an easy one. She got Jennifer! We now have a “Local Boater Card” so we can check into any other US port with a phone call.
Our second day on Puerto Rico was a big errand day again. Jim got diesel and found a place to get block ice. Hurray, the first time in months. He got 100 lb. block that they cut up in chunks small enough to fit our ice box. Now the ice box is full, but there’s not much room for food! Jennifer took out her braids today! She looks like a different girl now. We’re ready to catch fish when we move on again. We had a big dinner out with the crews for 7 of the boats that made the crossing with us - a good meal with lots of stories to share.
The weather was good for moving on so we left on Friday morning to head further east. We made stops in La Parquera, Caya Aurora (a.k.a. Gilligan’s Island) and Isla Caja De Muertos some very lovely beaches that are big weekend hangouts for the locals. Early Monday morning we arrived in the anchorage at Salinas with fish in our ice box.
Week 28;May 18 –May 23
Spent another week in Samana. We got all our errands run again –diesel, propane, fresh fruits and vegetables, cash, laundry (the price for laundry is outrageous here!), internet, etc. Now all we need is a good weather window and we can move on to Puerto Rico.
Jim is usually the one to run all the errands in town while Jennifer and Linda work on school. One day this week, he took them on a field trip to the places he goes. They watched his bargaining skills as he visited 2 different shops and got the price of the same item from 3000 pesos all the way down to 500 pesos. They met the local fruit and vegetable venders, meat venders, visited the cigar shop, and even toured the chicken factory. For not knowing Spanish, he can sure talk his way through a lot of situations with body language and a smile. After touring the town we walked across a foot bridge to explore a small island. Jim waited by the shore while Jennifer and Linda hiked around. By the time Jennifer and Linda met up with Jim again, he was talking to the crew of a large catamaran used for local tours and they were serving him rum and Coke. They did bring Coke for his esposa and Sprite for his nina.
We had more rain to fill up our water tanks again. Linda got another chance to wash clothes in the fresh water that collected in the dinghy.
After all this time in the Dominican Republic, we finally made it to a meringue bar. Good music, makes you want to move, but I’m not sure I can move quite like the Dominicans do. Maybe it wasn’t such an appropriate place to bring a 12 year old, but this is part of life here!
Rosie from Alianna gave Jennifer and Linda each an ankle bracelet that she made and attached them permanently to their ankles. They are official “boat gypsies” now.
Week 26 & 27;May 4 –May 17 We finally made our breakaway from Luperon. Monday the easterly trade winds died down enough to allow us to comfortably motor sail east along the north coast of the Dominican Republic. We left Monday afternoon and motor-sailed through the night and through Tuesday afternoon when we got to Escondito, a small bay surrounded by palm lined beaches and steep mountains. After resting till midnight, when the winds died down again, we continued on to Samana. We arrived safely in Samana Wednesday morning after motoring through one squall. The rest of the day the squalls came one after another. Fortunately our anchor held securely as we watched several other boats drag through the harbor. Our sailing buddies for this leg of the trip were Sim and Rosie on Alianna. It’s always nice to find another boat going the same place that moves at about the same speed. Checking in with the port authorities in Samana was a little different. Swine flu has become such a concern now that they brought a doctor to the boat for the check-in process just to ask how we were feeling and give us a list of symptoms of the swine flu and a number to call if we felt we had it. This was clearly a new procedure for her, as she climbed on the boat in her dress pants and heels.
Samana is a lovely city right on the water. Jim says it looks like a city on the Mediterranean Sea, because it’s built right up the side of the mountain. The province is a popular tourist destination for Europeans and Dominicans. Besides beautiful beaches, it’s known for being a whale observatory from January to March each year. The province also boasts 6-7 million coconut trees that produce 550 million coconuts per year.
The weather has been squally since we’ve been in Samana. It’s rained most every day and we’ve had some big down pours at night. When it rains hard, there’s a lot of runoff from the land. The water turns brown with all the soil washing into it and it’s dotted with tons of plastic and styrofoam trash that washes down as well. The upside of all the rain is that we’re starting to collect rain water and fill our water tanks. Linda’s been making use of the rain water in the dinghy to hand wash some clothes.
One morning while Jim was off the boat, the anchor alarm went off. In her attempts to secure the boat, Linda managed to cut the anchor line with the propeller and then the boat was really dragging. Thanks to the crew of Lilly, who just happened to be going by in their dinghy, Opus was rescued and tied off to their boat and until Jim got back and reanchored with another anchor and rode. Jim offered the locals a reward if they could recover our anchor and chain and after trolling with a grapple for a couple of hours they did. We were more than happy to hand over their reward money and beers for all who helped. Sim from Alianna, loaned us one of his anchors, that was much bigger than ours until we get to Puerto Rico and can replace the one that fell off in the Bahamas. Thanks Sim, we’re very greatful.
We did another waterfall tour here. This time it wasn’t waterfalls that you could walk up and slide down, it was one big waterfall (150 feet) that you could look at. We did swim in the pool underneath it, but almost too powerful to stay under the falls. To get to the waterfall we had to ride horses down a steep, rocky, muddy path. It was the kind of path where you just have to trust your horse and go with it or you’d be scared to death. The view was worth it. As part of the tour we also saw cacao trees (used for chocolate), coffee trees, banana trees and pineapples. It’s very lush and green here. Seems like everything grows here.
The National Park of the Haitises has been a highlight of the last two weeks. There are lots of caves in the limestone with stalactites, stalagmites and cave paintings. This isn’t like a national park in the US, so there are no lights and guided tours. You’re in the caves with flashlights hoping you find the best of the cave paintings and can tell them apart from all the graffiti. This is amazing stuff, just like Jennifer has read about in her history book. Besides the caves, the mangrove swamps were spectacular. The mangroves along the shore are as big and thick as we have ever seen. The roots shoot out from the top creating vines long and wide enough for Jennifer to swing on like Tarzan. Right around the base of the trees it’s very mucky. Jim stepped out of the stream and too close to the trees and sunk in past his ankles. He worked hard to recover his Crocs.
The other 4 boats we were anchored with talked us into going to an eco-lodge for lunch with them. It sounded a little to “yuppy” for us, but we were glad we went. Here’s Jennifer’s description of the day: “On our trip to the eco-lodge we had a great time. We had a long dinghy ride there that went trough a narrow creek that went through a mangrove swamp. Then we walked half a mile through countryside with rice fields, cows, horses and mountains. At the eco-lodge there were tons of manmade waterfalls. One huge one was being cleaned out and filled as we were eating with our boat buddies. After we finished eating we hit the water. It was cold, but got warmer as you got used to it. I was in the inner tube most of the time and I didn’t want to get out. We walked back to the dock and as we were going out the creek, we almost ran into one of the tour boats full of surprised tourists. All in all we had a great day.” The only thing I’ll add is that they did a fabulous job of landscaping with man-made waterfalls all around the lodge and restaurant in a lush green tropical setting tucked in the mountains. The pictures don’t really do it justice. BTW, the food was excellent.
Just a few more highlights from the park. We hiked several miles through the woods one day and ended up back at the eco-lodge. The trail went right through a cave, went past wild cacao trees. avocado trees, coconut trees, banana trees, trees covered in spikes 3-4 times the size of Hershey Kisses, the trees that have the huge seed pods with sea bean hearts (and we were told the all floated in from Africa!), ferns, moss and vines. We even came across some wild flowers that look like amaryllis plants. Linda’s mom would have loved them.
As we wait for a good weather window to head to Puerto Rico, we’re enjoying the company of folks on other boats waiting with us. Between impromptu socials on boats and tours we’ve gotten to know Sim & Rosie on Alianna, Jim & Renate on Emerald Seas and Susan & Larou on Southern Cross. Wind Whisperer, Vesper Light and Turn the Page are also here, but about a day ahead of us in the touring.