April 16, 2009, La Parguera – Boqueron, Puerto Rico
With these small unlighted cays all about you do not want to sail here in the dark.
Cabo Rojo lighthouse, PR
Larry wakes up at about 5.00 am and goes up on deck to confirm that everything is OK. He looks up and sees a triangle of blinking red lights high overhead and somewhat to the west. They are not moving. He gets out the binoculars and make out a faint round white shape that looks like a blimp. He goes back to sleep and in the morning sees that indeed it is a large blimp-shaped white balloon that appears to be more than 1000 feet up and tethered to the earth by a thin cord. We wonder what its function might be, and think it might be some kind of weather balloon. We leave the harbor in the light gradient wind before the sea breeze kicks in. By the time we have made it out through the reefs and the sails are up, it is blowing around 17 knots and we have a good ride down wind, round Cabo Rojo and reach up to the barrier reef at Boqueron. We drop the sails outside and motor across the bay to join about 15 other boats at anchor near the beach. We have not found a cruising guide for the Dominican Republic, so we go ashore to look for one. The concierge at Club Nautico tells us that there is no such thing. The closest book is Bruce van Sant’s Passage South, and it by-passes Santa Barbara de Samana, our next port of call. The concierge suggests we go down to Galloway’s bar where all the gringos hang out and learn from them the old fashioned way, by word of mouth. Sure enough, we are able to strike up a conversation with a couple of live aboards, but we come away feeling that our new knowledge is at best unreliable. They do tell us that the white balloon, which we can also see from Boqueron, is US Homeland Security’s “spy in the sky” with cameras that can see as far as Venezuela on a clear day. We return to the boat to relax over some decent wine and enjoy one of Elisabeth’s standard on board dinners -- grilled chicken, rice and salad. The best information we have is a general purpose email from Sam and Wendy, who were there a few weeks ago.
April 17, 2009-April 18, 2009 Puerto Rico --Santa Barbara de Samana, Dominican Republic
Our loyal crewmember Otto deserves a tee shirt, too
Taxi Samana style
It is about 140 miles from Boqueron to Santa Barbara de Samana over the Mona Passage, a crossing that is feared by many because of the high winds (due to the venturi effect between 2 high islands) and big currents and waves, especially at Hourglass Shoal (the sea goes from thousands of feet to 50 feet in a few miles, creating both big, unpredictable currents and steep waves). The forecast for today and tomorrow is NO WIND AT ALL! We do not like to motor for long distances, but the long term forecast is for a couple of weeks of high winds. We decide that the best course is to go ahead and motor. We leave about 8:00 and put up the sails to try to get some help from them, but mostly we motor and average about 5 knots. The crossing is pretty uneventful -- we cross paths with a couple of freighters in the afternoon and play with the radar to see how good the MARPA tracking is. It seems to determine the direction and speed of these objects pretty well. It was much less effective this morning in tracking the giant rain squall that parked on top of us for an hour or so. Elisabeth wakes up Larry a few times during the midnight watch – once to help her jibe due to a wind shift and once when an unidentified boat turns its spot/search light on us. The latter turns out to be a sailboat going the other way. We arrive at about 9:00 a.m., thread our way past a five foot spot in the entrance to the harbor, and begin to look for a good anchoring spot. We are hailed by an American on a Nordhavn 46 who recommends that we anchor just behind him as it is well protected from the prevailing winds and out of most of the local traffic patterns. We anchor there and within 15 minutes we are greeted by an official “welcoming committee” (our term, not theirs) consisting of an interpreter, a navy representative and a port authority representative. They board Singoalla, fill out a bunch of papers that they don’t seem to be too familiar with. The interpreter tells them what goes in which blank. They then charge us $15 for port authority authorization to stay plus a $5 “tip” to be split between the two officials. We agree to meet Joe, the interpreter, ashore in an hour after we have had time to launch the dinghy because we have to go to the immigration office. When we get to the dock Joe calls the immigration officer who agrees to meet us at his office, and sure enough in about 15 minutes he shows up on his moped. We go up to the second floor of a concrete government building. The officer opens the door to his office but makes no attempt to turn on the lights. We don’t know whether there is no electricity or he is just avoiding he heat caused by light bulbs. We now go through an incredibly laborious process of filling out mysterious forms in duplicate, which requires that much used pieces of carbon paper (remember that stuff?) be carefully torn up to fit the size of each form. It doesn’t seem to occur to anyone that a uniform size of both form and carbon paper would be a good idea. Finally we are charged $43 for the boat and $20 for the crew. We give him $70, but he doesn’t have any change in either dollars or pesos, and the idea of a credit card is a non-starter. Joe suggests that we take a tour of the town on a “motor concho”, a sort of DR version of a rickshaw. A 2 wheeled trailer with 4 seats and a top is attached to and pulled by a small motorcycle. Just as we are ready to leave our change arrives and we leave it with Joe as part of his compensation. Jorge, the driver, is very nice and shows us the hospital, pharmacies, the police station, banks, some restaurants, and finally the farmers’ market.. Elisabeth loves farmers’ markets, and goes crazy buying fruits and vegetables. When we finally get back to Singoalla David from Ginny, the Nordhavn in front of us, comes over and suggests that we join him ashore for pizza. We readily agree. He picks us up at 6:00 and takes us to a little restaurant in a back courtyard that we would not have found by ourselves. David has been here several weeks and is a fountain of information about what to do and where to go. He also tells us that there is a good cruising guide available on the Internet at Noonsite, a web site that specializes in cruising sailors. The food is excellent and the early hour suits us well as we are tired from the overnight sail.
April 19, 2009, Santa Barbara de Samana
A freqvent sight in the towns in DR -- garbage everywhere
Larry on the bridge to nowhere in Samana
Santa Barbara de Samana DR, a most welcoming town
Singoalla and Ginny in Santa Barbara harbor
Today we sleep later than usual. After breakfast we go ashore and visit a number of shops, most of them selling things we have absolutely no interest in. We go to the bank to get some local currency. We went yesterday, but Elisabeth is not used to exchange rate numbers of 35 to the dollar, so she got the decimal in the wrong place and only took out about $20. Today we withdraw a more sensible amount and go in search of a restaurant for lunch. We select Tony on the roundabout and go upstairs to the dining porch to find a table. There we meet John and Sandi Moore, Americans cruising on Hanco, a Hatteras 61 moored near us in the harbor. We join them for a long lunch. We enjoy each other’s company so much that they invite us to Hanco for cocktails at 5:00. After lunch we walk out on the “bridge to nowhere”, a large foot bridge that goes a quarter mile or so out to the island that forms one side of the mouth of the harbor. We get great photos of Singoalla in the harbor, but we are dismayed by the incredible amounts of garbage strewn about everywhere. It doesn’t seem to bother the locals who make no effort to dispose of thins in a sanitary fashion. When we return to Singoalla we download the cruising guide and find it to be quite helpful. We go to Hanco as agreed and David from Ginny joins us. We exchange stories and information for several hours before returning to Singoalla for a very light supper followed immediately by lights out.
April 20, 2009, Santa Barbara de Samana
We planned to go to Los Haitises National Park today, but it is not to be. Raf, one of the young men who hang around the docks trying to provide services to the boaters, has promised that his mother will do laundry for us. Unemployment is so high here and on the other islands that we always try to use the local “entrepreneurs” whenever we can. We find him about 9:00 and off he goes with the laundry, promising to return by 12:00. We go to the navy office to get our permit to go to Los Haitises. A friendly young lady types out our permit on an ancient manual typewriter with the now customary ragged carbon paper. She says we can stay there up to 3 days and must check in again when we return. She charges us $20 for the permit. Elisabeth has written several post cards, so now we have to go to the post office to buy stamps. After a couple of false steps we finally find the post office, where two more friendly young ladies provide us with stamps and some more post cards. When we are ready to pay they do not have any change. This seems to be the standard government condition. They offer us a couple of chairs while one of the girls goes out to look for change. She returns in twenty minutes or so with almost the correct change. It is now almost noon so we go to look for Raf. He is there but the laundry s not. Because of the rain shower earlier this morning the laundry is not dry, but will be ready by 1:00. Somewhat belatedly perhaps we conclude that mama does not have a dryer, but there is nothing to do but wait. We go out to Singoalla for lunch and return at 1:00. Raf is there with the laundry, which is neatly folded but definitely not dry. He wants the equivalent of $24 for his services, which we conclude is outrageous, particularly since the laundry will have to be rehung on Singoalla. We have no leverage, so we pay and leave somewhat disgruntled. Larry returns to Singoalla and strings lines through the cabin to hang the laundry on. Elisabeth goes to the phone store to buy a sim card for our unlocked telephone. We have learned to save quite a lot of money by using local chips even if we are only going to be on an island a few days. When Elisabeth gets back we find that the phone store clerk has sold Elisabeth a refill card, but not a sim chip, so we can’t use the phone. It is now clear that we are not going to be able to go to the park and we are very pleased when David invites us to Ginny for drinks at 7:30. We spend the afternoon folding laundry and doing other exciting chores. John calls us on the VHF from Hanco to ask us if we want to go ashore for dinner before going over to Ginny. We readily agree and go in with them to Bambu where we enjoy excellent omelets. Aboard Ginny we are very impressed by both the luxury and seaworthiness of the Nordhavn. We make a good dent in David’s alcohol supply and sleep very well immediately after returning to Singoalla.
April 21, 2009, Santa Barbara de Samana – Los Haitises National Park
A typical small island in Los Haitises
Sandi and John on Hanco
Sandi and John join us for cocktails
We leave the harbor at 8:30 for the 13 mile broad reach to Bahia San Lorenzo in Los Haitises National Park. It is blowing close to 20 knots when we anchor at the designated anchorage near the ranger station. There is a long fetch across the bay, so there is quite a lot of wave action and the bay is not very comfortable. Hanco comes into the bay shortly after we do. They decide to anchor in a cove on the south side of the bay and John reports on the VHF that it is comfortable there. We raise the anchor and reposition to a spot near them. We are the only two boats in sight. After lunch we join John and Sandi on Hanco’s tender to reconnoiter the bay. We are supposed to pay a small fee to the ranger, but the surf is too rough to land at the dock without help. A man sitting at the ranger’s cabin, whom we presume to be the ranger, makes no move to help us or communicate with us. We leave, explore a few incredibly beautiful coves and return to the boats when it threatens to rain. We are invited to Hanco for cocktails after which we return to Singoalla for a light supper of soup and a sandwich.
April 22, 2009, Los Haitises National Park
American, Green and Gold Crowned Egrets fishing in the mangroves
Unfortunately, the flash didn't work when we were in the Line Cave
Mangroves line the creeks at Los Haitises National Park
John and Sandi pick us up in their dinghy (smaller than their tender, but still substantially larger than our dinghy) to explore the park. Yesterday when we first arrived we saw a couple of tour boats go into the cove where we are now anchored so we go into the corner of the cove to see what is interesting. We see and follow a small creak that disappears into the mangroves between two cliffs. The topography here is just incredible. It reminds us of pictures we have seen of Southeast Asia. There are very steep islands and cliffs points of land that appear to be made of limestone that are covered with vegetation that grows where no self respecting plant should be able to stand. Orchids and other flowers are everywhere, as is a profusion of bird life. These steep cliffs are separated by flat areas in which small but relatively deep creeks flow through mangrove forests. We go up the creek for about a third of a mile and see a dock with signs pointing towards the “Line Cave”. We go ashore and are rewarded by finding a large cavern deep into one of the limestone hills, with several entrances. The walls are covered with prehistoric pictographs. Fortunately Larry has brought a flashlight and we spend an hour exploring the cave and marveling at the drawings of birds, animals, fish, sharks, babies, shamans (or is it shamen?), whales and more. We then return past our boats and go into another mangrove lined creek at the southeast end of the bay. Here the land is totally flat and the creek winds for ¾ of a mile through the mangroves with an incredible number and variety of bird life: white herons, blue herons, yellow crowned herons, egrets, buzzards, and many more. We then explore the west branch of the creek until we come to the Paraiso Eco Lodge, a wonderful, completely unexpected lodge where we eat lunch. After lunch we explore the coves to the west of our anchorage and find yet another mangrove lined creek that we follow for at least a half mile to a dock with a trail leading off into the forest. We do not go ashore here, but return most of the way to the cove and then explore another branch of the same creek. Soon we come to another, more substantial dock and we go ashore and find that the two docks are only about 100 yards apart. A marked trail leads from here back to the eco lodge, but we do not have time to follow it. We explore a little more coastline and then return to the boats. There is no way to describe the beauty here. At every turn there is a chorus of “wows”. Do not miss this park! Dinner is served on Singoalla. Larry gets so interested in the conversation that he forgets about the grill. As a result, we serve a new Singoalla dish “chicken briquettes”. We recommend that you avoid this dish in the future. Oh, well, at least the wine was good.
April 23-24, 2009, Los Haitises – Santa Barbara de Samana – Ocean World Marina, Puerto Plata
Happy retirees enjoying life
Ursula and Hans visit us on Singoalla
We leave the bay early, in light air, but just after we raise the sails the wind jumps up to 16 knots from the east. We have an enjoyable beat back to Santa Barbara and anchor near where we were before. It is going to be a long day, so we immediately go ashore to get our permit to go to Puerto Plata. These “despachos” are necessary every time we want to move the boat. I think they are concerned about being taken over by a horde of crazed sailors. Although we try to hurry, by the time we get back to Singoalla, get the motor on the stern rail and the dinghy lashed down to the foredeck it is already 2:00. The sailing is pleasant as we beat out past a cruise ship visiting Samana, pass north of Cayo Levantado and continue out towards Punta La Palometa. At the speed we are making against the wind and current we are worried that we will not make it to Puerto Plata during daylight hours tomorrow. But when we finally round Cabo Samana suddenly everything is working for us and we are going between seven and eight knots over the bottom. Now we are worried about getting there before dawn. Sure enough, about 4:00 a.m. we furl the jib and continue under main alone, still going at about six knots. We arrive at Ocean World, a large marina and entertainment complex, at about 8:00 a.m. We are told to come alongside the fuel dock whee we are greeted and boarded by the usual team of officials. Here there is a port tax of $50 amd an agricultural fee of $25, but no immigration fees as they accept the ones we have paid in Samana. While we are at the dock we top up our fuel tanks, then move the boat into the far east corner of the marina to stay out of the surge. We nap for a while and take it easy. We are visited in the afternoon by Hans and Ursula, a German couple who live near Boulder, Colorado and who arrived on their catamaran, Calico Paws, just ahead of us this morning. We invite them for cocktails at 5:00. We enjoy trading stories for a couple of hours and break up early as noe of us got much sleep last night.
April 25, 2009, Ocean World Marina – Puerto Plata and return by car
We are interested in going to the new La Sirena grocery store in Puerto Plata to re-provision. Hans and Ursula suggest that we combine that with a tour of the city and we think that is an excellent idea. At the gate to the marina we pick up a taxi and a (sort of) English speaking guide. He takes up to the heights above the city to the affluent section for a photo opportunity, then shows us expensive homes, slums, the amber museum, the central city square with its old cathedral, the harbor and the old Spanish fort. Finally we go through a time warp to la Sirena, a new, large, modern grocery store like something you would expect to find in California and totally out of keeping with the definitely third world character of the DR. We take advantage of the opportunity to stock up and return to the marina with so much stuff that we almost can’t get it all on the golf cart the dock boy uses to ferry us to our boat. When everything id finally stowed we just hang out on Singoalla for the rest of the day reading and planning the next leg of the trip.
April 26, 2009, Ocean World Marina
Our plans are to leave here for the Turks and Caicos as soon as possible, but today is definitely not the day. It rains off and on all day, and the winds are over 20 knots in the marina most of the time. The forecast is for squalls and high winds until at least Thursday, so we resign ourselves to staying here for the foreseeable future. Today becomes pretty much a non-day, with updating the blog being about the only accomplishment. We do get a chance to admire the comfort of Hans and Ursula’s catamaran. Calico Paws is a manta 40, about the same length as our boat, but as always with catamarans we are struck by the enormous amount of living and storage space compared with our monohull. We exchange tips about where to go and what to avoid over a glass of wine. This is something we always try to do when we meet cruisers going in the opposite direction.
April 27, 2009, Ocean World Marina – Luperon – Santiago and return by car
Barns DR style
Colorful fence DR
Laundry day in Luperon
Laundry equipment outdoors
Luperon
Farmers' market Santiago
Typical sight in Luperon
Shopping alley in Santiago
Mural in Santiago
Multipassenger moped
Luperon traffic
The forecast remains about the same as yesterday, although perhaps with a little less rain, so we are still stuck here for a few days. Hans rents a car to explore the island and invites us to come along. When the car arrives Hans carefully checks the spare because he has been warned that if we get off the major roads we are very likely to get a flat tire. We drive first to Luperon, a small community that has a large, mangrove lined harbor that is popular with cruisers. The water in the bay s pretty dirty and the town is like something out of Hemingway – busy but dirty and poor-appearing. Chickens and goats wander through streets that were probably once paved but are now mostly a network of potholes. We eat a surprisingly good lunch at Captain Steve’s, although the pace of the service by our French-Canadian waitress is definitely consistent with island time. After lunch we drive to Santiago. It takes us a while and a number of wrong turns to get oriented on the small map we have, but eventually we fine the historic part of the city. As we are looking for a place to park a young man who speaks pretty good English shows us an empty space next to the cathedral. He tells us he works for the church teaching orphan kids, and begins to show us around the area. As we walk, Hans and Jose have a continuing question and answer dialog, and Jose seems quite knowledgeable about the area, unlike our guide in Puerto Plata who was unable to give a straight answer to any question. We see the central square, Christopher Columbus park, a couple of churches, an open air street market staffed mainly bu Haitians, and an impressive Moorish-inspired building where the dictator Trujillo used offices on the first floor and danced he meringue on the second floor when he visited Santiago. The meringue hall is now a bingo parlor. Sic transit Gloria. We return to the car and prepare to leave Jose, but he protests that his tour isn’t over yet. We are a little surprised, but José gets in the car with us and shows us the noisy, busy fruit market. Elisabeth and Ursula each buy bags of fruit. We now head out of downtown and up a long steep hill to Camp David, a sort of museum/restaurant/hotel with a magnificent view of the city. It is high enough to be definitely cooler than the city, and the old cars that were used by Trujillo are interesting. We finally return to the city and prepare to drop Jose off near the church where we picked him up. We offer him what we think is a nice tip for what we view as informal guide services, but he informs us that the fee for the tour is $10 each. This is a lot of money in this country where a school teacher, for example, earns about $150 per week. We object that we were never told that we were on a tariffed tour, and in fact he told us that he worked for the church. Eventually we agree on a compromise but return to Puerto Plata with a sour taste in our mouths. It is an unfortunate end to an otherwise nice excursion. Since we had a very large lunch, Elisabeth serves soup for dinner.
April 28, 2009, Ocean World Marina
The forecast is still not good, but we decide that at least we should prepare everything for departure. Larry checks the engine fluids and belt tension. The fluids are fine, but both belts should be tighter. The alternator belt is as tight as it will go. It must have stretched some, so we replace it with our last good, heavy-duty spare. We will get more spares as soon as we can. He tightens the shrouds all around, since the leeward shrouds have looked pretty loose in recent days. We enter waypoints into the navigation system and prepare alternate routes to Turks and Caicos, Mayaguena and Long island. They all start the same direction and we will select the destination depending on the speed we are able to go and the time of day of our planned arrival. When we rewired Singoalla Erik installed the a circuit to the water heater which is supposed to heat water either through a heat exchanger using cooling water from the engine or through a 120 volt shore power connection. We do not use shore power very often, but Larry turns on the switch here to see if the system actually works. The rest of the day we pretty much do nothing -- read, work on the blog and relax. Dinner is fruit salad, all Elisabeth feels up to after the exhausting day.
Last night it rained hard all night, a bucket left in the cockpit had almost 4 inches of water in it this morning. Any place in the boat that could leak does. Fortunately that number is now pretty small. We have now seen enough of this place and more. But Chris Parker continues to warn of 30 knots plus squalls today and tomorrow, and the GRIB files and NOAA forecasts agree. We decide not to leave today. Hopefully tomorrow will be OK, but Friday is more likely. After breakfast Elisabeth starts to wash the dishes and is startled to find that the water is hot. She doesn’t know about the new circuit, and this is a pleasant surprise. Hans comes over and helps Larry up the mast to fix the steaming light. It is simple -- the ground wire has come out of the connector. Elisabeth searches the internet for fares for our summer trip to Sweden. We work on the blog, do crossword puzzles, listen to the rain squalls and twiddle our thumbs. Hans and Ursula join us for dinner on Singoalla for Elisabeth’s special spaghetti. As usual it is excellent. We are really glad that we have had their company here otherwise the week would have seemed interminable.
Thursday, April 30, 2009, Ocean World Marina
OK, this is it. Our last day here. The forecast for today is not too bad, but tomorrow is supposed to be a wonderful sailing day. Larry goes to talk to the customs officer and finds that three other boats including Calico Paws will also be leaving tomorrow. That is almost half of the boats in here, and we are all equally happy to get away. We have a late lunch together with Hans and Ursula in a local restaurant, not gourmet but OK local fare. We go for a walk checking out the resort next door to the marina and return to the boat to check out of the marina. This time we do not have to meet with the same armada of bureaucrats, only customs today. The navy will check us out the very moment we leave (for a modest fee of $20, of course). The bureaucracy and fees charged visiting boats in the DR unfortunately turn cruisers off from spending time in this beautiful country. The idea of free movement in a country is totally foreign to them
1 comment:
What an exhaustive entry! this must have taken hours. Anyway, have I told you lately how jealous i am of this trip? I'm glad your long passage went well, and look forward to seeing more pictures!
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