Our first view of the Dominican Republic

 

So much forthe best laid plans. Yesterday, about 2:00pm we were getting ready to pull upthe anchor to head to Luperon, the final run to the Dominican Republic. I don’t think any of us had a great feeling about this leg, not that we thought it would be hard or scary, just a feeling that it was going to be long and uncomfortable. In fact I had the kids mentally creating a smooth passage. It didn’t work. At 2:00pm I went forward to pull up the anchor. Of course I don’t pull it up by hand, we have a windlass, an electric motor that pulls the anchor and all the chain, (I had about 130 feet of chain out) up from the ocean bed. Our windlass has normally been flawless, but twice before when I pressed the button, the motor stayed on even after I released pressure. This caused the chain to tangle and even with the anchor up and locked so it couldn’t come upany more, the motor kept running. Dan had to manually shut off the power on the control panel. It happened again another time and luckily after about 10 seconds of running on its own, it shut down by itself. This time was worse.

 

I almost had all the chain up and I released pressure on the button, but the motor kept running. The chain was mashing against the other chain, the motor was straining, and I couldn’t make it stop. I yelled to Dan to turn it off. He turned the power off at the control panel but the motor kept running. In a very quick, smart move, he disconnected it from the fuse and it stopped. Now I had about 20 feet of chain balled up under the windlass that should have gone down the hole with the other chain, the anchor was just barely holding and of course the wind was starting to move us
around. We all sprang into action.

 

From the front of the bow where the chain and anchor come up, the chain then goes into a closed tube like structure for about 12 feet and then emerges inside the anchor locker where the chain wraps around the windlass. The chain is inaccessible while it is in this tube. Where the chain comes up onto the boat to where this tube starts is about a foot and a half. Not much room. Dan and I pulled up the anchor together, then he held it while I fed the chain into the tube. Tristan and Tessa were at the anchor locker. When I fed the chain into the tube, Tristan pulled the slack into the anchor locker and Tessa fed it down the hole to join the other chain. We had the whole thing done in about 5 minutes! The kids did great with a minimal amount of instruction. I was very proud of them. So now we had the anchor up, but no
windlass. Since we knew we would be anchoring in Luperon for a long time, and we could put the anchor down without the windlass, we decided to go on. Not a
great start.

 

The passagessouth book tells you to not be fooled by strong winds when you leave Big Sand Cay. You should get out about 5 miles before you make up your mind to continue. Five miles out, the wind was about 16 knots, on the nose of course, and the waves were short and choppy, about 3 to 4 feet high. No big deal, so we decided to keep going. At this point the biggest concern was the bathroom. We were running on a lean supply of toilet paper, and this crossing would take a
minimum of 15 hours. God be with us.

 

Dan took thefirst watch and about 5 pm I took over. I was prepared for this overnight passage. I had all the snacks laid out in the kitchen, in ziplocks to keep them
together. Everyone’s favorite can of soup was out also, along with the pans for cooking. Everything was secured and within easy reach. I again suggested going
to Ocean World instead of Luperon but Dan wasn’t hearing it. I told him it was a joint decision and we needed to at least discuss it, but he was adamant. I
let the subject drop for that moment. We had a long night ahead of us.

 

Just as it got dark, I saw the lights of a ship directly in front of us. It seemed as if he was coming straight at us, and Dan eventually made radio contact with him.
He was aware of us so we were able to relax. As usual, there was lightning in the distance. The winds picked up to about 20 knots and the waves started to
increase. There was no moon, only the sporadic lightning that gave me a glimpse of the building waves in front of me.

 

We were motoring of course, and Dan was trying to be very conscious of the wear on the engines. The plan again was to run both engines for a time, shut one off to
rest it and check the oil, then restart and go again on both engines. Dan wasn’t feeling too well. I was fine so I told him I would stay on watch longer. The waves were really confused and were slamming against the boat; whitecaps were all around us. The wind crept up to 26 knots. Every once in awhile I would hear this loud WHOOSH! as a wave broke beside the boat. The wind slowly crept up all night until it peaked right at 30 knots.  I was really thankful for the darkness as Ididn’t want to see the waves. I wasn’t scared, not that I am that brave, but I was in the middle of nowhere and there was no one to help us,
and there was nothing I could do to make the trip any better.  I didn’t know how to sail in these conditions but I had confidence that Alegria knew how to handle the waves, so I just kept my faith in the motors, the radar, the autopilot, and Alegria.  I was really thankful for my harness. I attached the safety line to the bar inside the cockpit, turned sideways in my seat so I was facing the open ocean, and resigned myself to a long night.

 

Tristan was asleep in the cockpit, next to Dan and Tessa was sleeping inside. I was worried about her as the waves pounding the boat were causing stuff to shift inside. But she slept fine, so did Tristan. Luckily we missed the storm, and it settled into being a long uncomfortable night. We weren’t making good time at all. When
we only went on one engine, the boat went slower and the ride was smoother. At one point we were doing less than 3 knots! We had to turn back on the other
engine or we would never make Luperon before 10 am. We didn’t have to worry about the toilet paper shortage as no one was going to go inside the boat
anymore than they had to.

 

About 30 miles from the island of Hispaniola, true to what the guidebooks said, you could start to smell the Dominican Republic. It was a wonderful, rich, earthy smell that wrapped you in a blanket of comfort. Wonderful! Dan took over the watch about 1:30am and I was thankful as I was very drained. You get very dehydrated on a windy night passage. I drank some Gatorade and fell asleep. When I woke up, it was only 3:30 am, and the weather and waves hadn’t gotten any better. It felt like this night would never end. Dan and the kids were fine so I laid  back down. Before I drifted back to sleep I heard the words I had been waiting for, “We may have to go to Ocean World”

 

YES! My night was getting better. When I woke again the sun was up. The waves had actually gotten bigger! They were huge, coming up on our side.  I was so done with this trip.  When a really big wave came, Dan and I did our best to distract the kids so they wouldn’t see it.   But what a view!  In the distance were these
huge, lush, green mountains. They were gorgeous!

 

The trip had taken us much longer than we had planned and we were going to miss our deadline to get into Luperon.  I got out the Ocean World flyer. Dan was of course all excited about going there now and was acting like it was his idea. I chalked it off to insanity from the long trip.

 

We didn’t  have a Dominican Republic flag. When you enter a country, you are supposed to raise your quarantine flag to check in. After check in you have to fly the flag of that country. When we were back in Florida buying flags for the trip, we had never planned on going to the Dominican Republic. I told Dan I would like to go there, and I was sure we had bought the flag, but apparently not. When I pulled out the flag from the captain’s table (it was out of its wrapper) I was a bit
suspicious. Luckily Tristan got out his Children’s World Atlas that thankfully shows the flags of all the countries. The flag I was about to use for the DR was actually the flag for Belize. Now what? “You can make one,” suggests Dan.

 

Make one, is he crazy? Am I Betsy Ross? Shall I rip up the kids T shirts and sew up a flag? He really should remember who he married. If I’m going to have to make the flags, we are going to have restrict our visits to countries with simple striped flags like Colombia, Estonia, Poland.

 

We finally pull into Ocean World Marina about 11:15 or so. With the wind and these waves, no way would we have made it into Luperon. As we were heading in, I tried to pick up inside as best as I could. The waves crashing on the boat had really created a mess inside. As soon as we docked, customs was right there at our
boat to check us in. They were very friendly. Only one of them spoke English. I was really embarrassed to have them see the boat that much of a mess and we tried to explain we hit bad weather, but they just smiled.  The whole process took about 15 minutes; no bribes, no having to wait for customs or try to track them down. I have read all the horror stories of checking in at Luperon and I really don’t understand why cruisers don’t come here to check in. Even if you only stay one night, it’s
worth it.

 

The marina was beautiful, with a casino, restaurants, a bar on the 4th floor that gives you a panoramic view of the marina and mountains. Most importantly, the water was clean. Included in our marina stay was unlimited access to Ocean World Marina. As we were talking to the guys from customs, the kids were about beside
themselves as they could see the sea lion show from our dock. Dan and I thought we would settle in for a nap, but how were we going to keep them on the boat
when they knew there was a dolphin and tiger show in their backyard?

 

We headed into the marine park and it really was well done. Except for the annoying salesman pitching timeshare opportunities as you go in, it really was nice. In
addition to the animal shows they have animal encounters where you can swim with the rays, sharks, and dolphins and interact with the sea lions. I have
mixed feelings about these shows. On one hand I hate wild animals kept in pens, but I also  believe if people can’t see nor touch these beautiful animals, they won’t have any interest when it comes to helping save them or their environment. I was very glad that our kids had their own “swim with the sharks” and “swim with the rays” in the wild.  But for those who can’t get out there, this park was the next best thing.

 

After a few hours, and remembering the toilet paper crisis, we realized we needed to get to the grocery store. The marina had a taxi service and Patrick, who works at the marina, went along to be our interpreter/guide. Luckily he spoke English as we spoke very little to no Spanish. The grocery store, Super Mercado was really nice. It was very comparable to a US grocery store and we found everything we needed. The prices were very reasonable, and they took American money. As we headed back to the boat, Patrick took us on a short tour of Puerto Plato. The city was busy, crowded with motoconchas (motorcycle taxis)everywhere, people barely making use of the lanes in the road, but we loved it! We couldn’t wait to go exploring on our own. We all had the best sleep that night. I know we are really going to like it here. As for Luperon? Missed it by that much!

 

Ocean  World

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

     OCEAN WORLD

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This tiny deserted island, a bird sanctuary, is our last stop before Dominican Republic!!  The water surrounding the island is crystal clear and extremely flat as we set anchor in about 16 feet of water.  Leaving  Ambergis Cay that morning was a little touch and go as we decided to take a short cut and wound up in the midst of some very menacing coral heads.  About 20 minutes into it, we had enough.  Luckily we could turn around and pick our way back out.  We took a longer but much safer route.  Underwater we saw 4 huge Manta rays, flying under the water in V formation.  They were so beautiful!  We also saw a mast of a sunken sailboat who decided to take the shortcut and wound up on the coral.  Other than that, the day was quiet, and we enjoyed another night of stargazing.  We will be leaving late tomorrow, about 2:00pm to head to Dominican Republic.  We will be motoring again, overnight, and we need to time it to get to Luperon before 10am.  We have heard from several sources that if you don’t arrive early,  you won’t be able to get into the harbor because of the strong winds coming off the tall mountains on the north coast.  We will give ourselves plenty of leeway, figuring if we get there too early, say before sunrise, we will just motor off shore.

I am still hoping to go to Ocean World Marina first instead of Luperon.  We have a brochure on Ocean World and it looks amazing.  It is somewhat like Atlantis in the Bahamas, with the casino, and aquariums.  They have sharks, dolphins, birds, tigers and you can interact with all of them.  Luperon has swimming rats. Dan is determined to go to Luperon though.  Hopefully we will get to Ocean World by car.

Another early morning as we make way for Ambergris Cay.  The trip is uneventful except for the constant coral head watch as we cross the banks.  With the water a very light shade of green, it is very easy to see any coral, if you have the right sun.  A few times we have been fooled by clouds reflecting on the water, but that’s alright.  Better to be safe than sorry. 

The guidebook we have from 2002 lists Ambergris Cay as an uninhabited island. A local Turks and Caicos magazine I picked up in Provo, shows the island is being developed into private homes.  That just shows you how much development has been going on in the last few years.  I am not exactly sure why.  Maybe the Bahamas is tightening up on its development, but Turks and Caicos is in full swing.  Ambergris is not a pretty island, and it doesn’t have great beaches that we can tell.  I think the draw is that you are away from everything.  There is a new runway, and it looks like they are building an airport terminal and possibly a marina.  Only a few (maybe 3) houses have been built so far.  The island is surrounded with reefs, so we have to pick our way in carefully.  Tessa, Dan and I take a swim before dinner and Tristan heads out in the kayak.  We are anchored in 9 feet of water, pretty far from shore, and as usual, we are the only ones here.  A few local fishing boats pass by us on their way home to who knows where, and except for the few construction workers on the island, we are all alone.  As at Mayaguana, the construction workers must stay on the island as we didn’t see a ferry come to take them off. 

 Deciding there’s nothing interesting on the island, after our steak dinner, we watch a movie.  When the movie is over, we step outside into the cockpit.  There’s no moon and it’s pitch black outside.  I look up, and catch my breath.  I believe I can see every star ever created.  In the Abacos, we could see a good bit of the Milky Way.  Here you can see it in its entirety stretching from nearly from one end of the sky to the other.  The stars are set in easy to see shapes, triangles, circles, lines; patterns I have only seen in star gazing books. They are all here.

And they twinkle.  They really do twinkle.

There isn’t a clear cut distinction between the water and the sky, just varying shades of dark blue from overhead, down to a hazy lighter blue where I presume the water is.  The light around us is so flat, you can really only clearly see out about 5 feet from the boat.  It’s hard to look at as your eyes are trying to focus on something that isn’t there, only nothingness.  It makes you dizzy and forces you to keep looking up at the awesome show overhead.   I am amazed to think that when we were back in Charlotte, these same stars were there, we just couldn’t see them.  It’s incredible how much beauty we miss in this world.