Ok this last passage to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic must have drove Tristan a little crazy.  We shouldn’t have left him alone with the camera.

Early start again for Punta Cana.  A great day and again we entertained ideas of keep going on, that is until we hit more rain.  Oh well.  We had a visitor for about an hour.  This poor bird was exhausted and he rested on our boat after one of the storms.     

We decided to spend the night at Punta Cana Marina and get a good idea about the upcoming weather.  The marina is ok.  They tried to stick us in a slip that was way too small for us.  We ended up staying on the fuel dock.  It  isn’t comfortable, as we are getting a surge.  We were going to check out Cap Cana next door until we went into pay for our slip h ere at the Punta Cana Marina.  The price for our catamaran, with electricity and water?  $16.80.   Plus, we have access to the Punta Cana resort, rated one of the top resorts in the world.  Life is good!!!  We may be here awhile.

Pulled up the anchor and got an early start.  What a beautiful day.  The kind of day that makes you want to think about not stopping at Punta Macao.  How about keep heading to Punta Cana.  Why stop there?  Why not go all the way to Puerto Rico?   We could hear,on the VHF radio, a few other sailboats somewhere around us and they were going straight through.  Maybe we should too?  (Obviously we hadn’t learned our lesson)  A few hours later we run right into a fishing net, wrapping it around the starboard engine.  The engine stops.  Here we go again.    Dan has to suit up and jump overboard in the middle of nowhere.  I make him tie a rope around his waist to keep track of him.  The fishing net is wrapped around the prop and he has to take a knife and go under the boat to cut it loose.  It takes awhile. but eventually he gets it free, luckily without cracking his head on the boat. 

We are underway again but when we hit the storms later on, we take it as a sign we need to stop at Punta Macao for the night.  Later we can still hear the other sailboats on the VHF.  They have a rainy night ahead of them.  I am so glad we stopped.

We are no sooner anchored than the coast guard came out on the pretense of seeing our paperwork.  There are a lot of people on the beach, having a big party.  The translator guy with the coast guard tells us that he wants to make sure we are safe here and that no one boards our boat trying to smuggle to Puerto Rico.

“There are crazy Dominicans here.”  He adds, “I’m Dominican too but I’m not crazy!”

He tells us that we can stay and they will have a boat patrol the harbor.  Of course, it would be nice if we could give them a little something for this.  What a salesman!!!  Of course we don’t believe they will patrol the harbor, nor do I believe a crazy Dominican will become a stowaway on our boat, but we give him a little something anyway.

There is alot of activity on the beach, and he tells us that they have much “laughter”.  At least that is what I thought he said.  I just nodded.  He said it again, “So if you want you can come to the beach.  We have much laughter.”  Again I nodded.  I really needed much laughter, but I was really just exhausted. 

Later Dan told me he was saying lobster!  I really could have used some lobster!!!