Today, we rented a car for the day. The rental, a little red Kia, cost $65 US cash or $3055 DR pesos. No identification needed. No need to show a driver's license. No 18% tax if we pay cash. Hmmmmm.
The car arrives on empty, so our first destination was to a gas station in Samana. It was a short drive, and a tall lesson in DR driving. Carey drove for the first part, and I drove part of the way back, so we both got a taste of the craziness. There are motorcycles everywhere, and they seem to be the prime method of transportation for most families. You really need eyes in the back of your head, because motorbikes pass on both sides of the car, plus some of the motorbikes drive on the wrong side of the road, and cars totally disregard the lines on the road, the pedestrians who hang out on the edge of the road, and other cars. Apparently the Pare (Stop) signs and speed limit signs are just suggestions. Yup, it's a little hairy. However, we made it back without hitting anyone or anything.
This is a land of contradictions. On one hand you'll see new construction, and a few yards away, shacks; lots of poverty, but most people look clean and neat, and everyone has a cell phone.
Here's a snapshot of our drive through DR: Crazy (or intrepid, or reckless, depending on your interpretation) drivers on motorbikes; skinny boy carrying a chicken; shacks; 10-year old kid aiming slingshot at our car; some construction; bull tied by horns and neck to a tree beside road; horses grazing; 11 o'clock on a Friday and kids are not in school (we learned later that they go to school Monday through Thursdays); road crew picking up garbage on the side of the road; laundry hung on fences; people on bikes with a large sack of potatoes; another with a six foot board on the back sticking out on both sides, and several with three people, some with little kids; most women and girls have their hair pulled back and tamed; girls usually have multiple braids decorated with colourful beads...and many people talking on or peering at their cell phone--even while riding their motorcycles or cars in traffic--with no helmets! Eek!
Another boater told us later that DR has just passed a new law that all bikers need to wear helmets, no more than two per bike, and no one under the age of 12 can be on a bike. That is hilarious, because no one follows those rules. During our entire trip, we only saw one person with a helmet, and we saw one biker get knocked off his bike.
The people of DR, seem very friendly and polite. They all say 'hola' and smile when they approach. It seems like the country is in a bit of a transition. They are starting to encourage tourism, but still have a strong military presence at the ports. Even the officials have been very friendly to us, which wasn't always the case for cruisers, we understand.
Our goal today was to go to the Cascada de Limon, a waterfall in Limon, and to buy provisions in Las Terrenas. When we arrived at a big hand painted sign for the Cascada, we stopped, paid the $2 to park in someone's front yard, and then tried to communicate (in Spanish) with the people there. They wanted us to take a caballo (horse) and guide, but Carey didn't want a horse, he just wanted to walk. Okay, they finally showed us the way, but did mention that my sandals wouldn't be up to the trek. I changed to running shoes and we turned onto the trail. Oops, nope, not going this way. The whole track was wet, churned up mud from the horses' hooves. Okay, so maybe we'll see a waterfall another day. We jumped back in the car and drove toward the next town.
However, just up ahead about a mile, there was another sign for the waterfall and no horses in sight. We pulled over and once again I practised my Spanish. Yes, we could go this way to the waterfall, but we needed a guide, because it was too 'dificil' (difficult) to do it alone. She was right. Hernando, our 20-year-old guide was friendly and informative. This is another great place for practising my Spanish because our guide knew only a little English. Hernando led us on the long trek (about 45-60 minutes), up and down rocky slopes until we finally reached the waterfall.
The Dominican Republic's national stone is Larimar, named after the discoverer's daughter, Larissa, and the Spanish word for sea, 'mar'. This beautiful blue stone was first discovered in 1974 and it is only found in the Dominican. At the straw market by the gate to the waterfall, I had to buy a chunk for my inukshuk that sits on my mantle at home. It's made up of rocks from some of the different places we've been around the world.
After hiking back to our car, we headed toward Las Terrenas, further up the north coast. On the way we stopped for lunch at Porto Restaurante. Oh, my, what a beautiful place, overlooking the ocean. This was a lovely respite after our earlier exercise. I went for the seafood, of course.
After lunch, we reprovisioned in Las Terrenas at Lindos Mercado Super. Their produce was very disappointing. Other than local fruit, there wasn't much there that was worth buying. Also, they don't seem to have cream anywhere in the Dominican. We bought a can of crema de leche (which means cream of milk), but it was as thick as soft butter and left floaties in our coffee. Yuck. I guess we'll have to use the Coffeemate I brought from home for emergencies. This is an emergency when we can't get cream for our coffee!
The marina is holding a regatta (boat race) tomorrow, so they invited everyone (even non-racers) to a cocktail party tonight. Free drinks. Nice.
Saturday, March 18, 2017
Today is race day! No, we didn't enter the regatta, but our young neighbours (Romain and Gilina on S/Y Talaria) asked us if we could take pictures of their boat during the race. We planned on watching it anyway, so we agreed.
The start was scary! There were a few boats with Armada (Navy) cadets that had no engine, so a Navy motor boat came in to tow them out. Yikes! It was like a three ring circus--the motorboat driver had no clue what he was doing. He was in the way of the other sailboats trying to come out (causing at least one to hit a spile), he almost backed into our boat, all three of his boats bounced off the spiles, and they snapped the tow line of one of the boats. We'd be surprised if there wasn't some damage done. Once all of the sailboats were out of the marina, they all took off like a....well, bunch of turtles. We've got good wind (15-17 knots) for a race. They will be racing around the island off Cayo Levantado and back here, so we have time for a lovely lunch at the infinity pool's restaurant, Cafe Del Mar.
This was Talaria's first race ever, and they did well--third place out of the monohulls. I took tons of photos of their boat during the race, and they seemed very pleased with the results.
Sunday, March 19, 2017
We are leaving this afternoon, so we puttered around and got a few odd jobs done. The Armada lieutenant came at 10:00 to write us up a despacho, which is a required official form saying that we checked out of this port. We need one every time we move to another port in DR, and when we leave the country. We will have to show this form to the Armada person when we arrive at our next port, Ocean World Marina in Puerto Plata.
This morning we did a few odd jobs, just putting in time before we leave. We filled our number two water tank with water, and then found out that it isn't potable. Yikes, no drinking from that tank. We will use this water only for showers and washing. I will put bleach in that tank to kill any bacteria before we add potable water in the Bahamas. We have purchased bottles of water for drinking in the meantime.
We watched the second day of the regatta while we had lunch at Cafe Del Mar by the infinity pool. We were a little worried about Talaria, because it looked like they might have had a problem out there. They furled their sails and were motoring in before the end of the race.
We left the dock just after 1:00 pm and headed out of Samana Bay. It took us three hours to get out of the bay and around the northeastern point, Cabo Samana.
We have six foot swells and 13-15 knots of wind. Carey is doing a great job on the helm, but we are still rolling and slamming around a lot. I took the helm at 3:30 and we finally turned on enough of an angle to put our sails up at 4:00. The winds were lighter now, so we left the motor on at 1300 rpms. We like to get at least 5 knots per hour.
The distance from Marina Puerto Bahia Samana to Ocean World near Puerto Plata is 115 nm.
At 5 knots per hour it will take approx. 24 hours.
At 6 knots per hour it will take approx. 20 hours.
At 7 knots per hour it will take approx. 17 hours.
If we left at noon, we'd get in at noon, 8:00 am, and 5 am respectively. We left at 1:00, so the earliest we will arrive is 6 am.
At 4:20 pm a pod of dolphins swam off our bow. This time they hung around for awhile so we could get a good look at them. So beautiful with their slick grey backs. That made me happy.
As the sky was darkening, we saw two vessels together on the AIS. As they drew nearer, we realized it was a huge drilling platform being pulled by a tug. It was dark by the time they reached us, but the rig was lit up like a Christine tree. No missing that thing!
At 12:40 am, we passed the Navigator of the Sea cruise ship. That's a pretty ship at night. I'm not thrilled about meeting other vessels tonight. Our nav lights aren't working and neither is our steaming light. We only have our trilight, which, technically, is enough, but I prefer to be lit up brightly so that there is no way they'll miss seeing us.
Monday, March 20, 2017
After 21 hours on the water, we arrived at Ocean World Marina just after 10 am. Eddie, the dockmaster, met us and explained the procedures. Customs, Immigration, Armada, and Narcotics people will all come to the boat along with a marina representative (Hector). The first group (Customs, Immigration, Army, Marina) came and did their paperwork, then the Narcotics guys came and did theirs. All were very friendly. No one wanted to search the boat--I guess we have honest faces.
At the fuel dock, we met another cruiser who had just come from the Turks and Caicos and was going to Puerto Rico. We traded information and he said that the Turtle Cove Marina in Providenciales, T&C, was very good. He said that a pilot boat will escort us in through the shallows. Sounds like a good plan. He also said that Southside Marina (Bob is the owner) was good, too, but they only have 12 slips so they are almost always full.
By 12:00 noon, we were tied up to our dock (D17). The docks are high cement docks with wood slats as guard rails. Luckily, we got a dock that we are blown off of so we won't have to listen to squealing fenders all night as they rub against the dock.
They have a free shuttle into Puerto Plata for provisions, so we took advantage of that. It was a herky jerky ride into Puerto Plata. Motorcycles everywhere and lots of crazy drivers here, too. Our shuttle driver was one of them. After we bought a few provisions, we took our lives in our hands and suffered the ride back. Phew, we felt lucky to have made it unscathed.
We tried to check out, but if we want to leave before 8:00 am, we have to pay a $20 fee. Not sure why. We do need a despacho from the Navy/Armada guy, but they won't give you one until just before you are leaving. They arrived at our boat later in the evening and we confirmed that we wanted to leave in the morning between six and seven. They seemed to be waiting for something after that (I'm sure it was a tip), but we didn't bite. We just smiled and waited them out. Eventually, they moved on.
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
Early to bed, early to rise. The alarm went off at 5:45 this morning, because the Armada guys were supposed to come at 6. Everything is wet in the cockpit, because it's been raining most of the night. The Armada arrived at 6:30, came on board, and handed over our despacho and said it would cost $20. I'm not sure that was kosher, but I paid it to get them off the boat and us on the way.
We left Puerto Plata at 6:45 am, and headed for Big Sand Cay in Turks and Caicos which is just south of the Bahamas chain. We had a short reprieve from the rain when we first left, but that didn't last.
I woke up with a terrible sinus headache this morning and it's taken me hours to almost get rid of it. These headaches upset my stomach, too, so I'm not a happy camper. I've been so healthy on this whole trip so I guess I can't complain too much. I laid down for a while in the hopes it would make me feel better, but no dice. The big swells aren't helping matters as we're getting rocked quite a bit--stuff is falling on the floor and cabin doors are slamming. We hope to arrive by nightfall so it'll be a long day on the water.
After I gave up on sleeping and joined Carey in the cockpit, he said it had been raining most of the time he was on watch. It has continued into the afternoon, so we retreated down below, where it is much drier and more comfortable, but we are keeping an eye on our chartplotter and out our windows for other boats. (But, really, what crazies would be out on a day like this?) It's Carey's turn for a nap, but I can't imagine he's getting much rest with all of this racket.
I spent a couple hours planning our next stops though the Turks and Caicos and into the Bahamas. It sounds like we are going to be in some great snorkelling areas. I can't wait to get back in the water. It's been too long.
After a lunch of leftover pizza from the Ocean World Bistro, Carey felt ill. He spent most of the afternoon lying down trying to rest, but it's so rolly and noisy that he didn't get much.
Every once in a while, we would hear, and feel, a huge BANG when either our bow would slam down over a wave, or when we'd get hit broadside by a breaker. Not good; we don't like that at all! Progress is very slow in these conditions, so a 10 hour trip is going to take over 16 hours. Ugh.
Yup, 16 hours to reach the anchorage on Big Sand Cay, Turks and Caicos, and then we had to anchor in the dark, in an unknown anchorage, with the birds squawking all around us. This is never a good idea, and when the winds and waves are high, and there's so much noise, it's even worse. We've been warned that this will be a rolly anchorage, but we're so exhausted we don't even care. Once we got into bed, we heard a tick, tick, tick sound, but couldn't discern what it was. By that time, we couldn't care less, so we drifted off to dreamland.
Wednesday, March 22, 2017
Yup, this is definitely a rolly anchorage. We slept, but didn't feel very rested in the morning and we were sore from constantly trying to balance ourselves during our 16-hour ordeal yesterday. We had a slow start and then I checked the weather using our satellite connection (through Iridium Go). Uh, oh, the stormy weather that had been forecasted for Friday is moving in sooner. We need to get somewhere safe and protected today. Ugh, we don't want another long trek today. However, upon reviewing the charts again, Carey pointed out Cockburn Harbour on South Caico Island. When we looked it up in our chartbook it says it is "billed as the most protected harbour in the TCI". Perfect. That's what we are looking for. Hopefully, it won't be too crowded.
Sadly, that means we have to get on the road again, in conditions very similar to yesterday. Ugh. We raised anchor and were off by 10:00. It was raining and everything was wet, so there was no place to sit in the cockpit. We decided to repeat yesterday's method and go below. Our boat's wifi is working again, thank goodness, so we can watch our chartplotter from the comfort of our salon, with periodic visual checks.
This should be a much shorter day, because it's only 23 nm to Cockburn Harbour, approximately four hours. We hope to have our anchor planted by 2:00 pm. Fingers crossed.
The igniter on my stove quit working the other day, so I have to use a butane lighter. No big deal unless you're rocking and rolling, because it takes two hands this way, so I can't hold onto anything. Of course, this morning I need the stove to boil water for the dishes, because the Dominican water isn't potable and we filled one of our tanks with their water. We only use it for showers and washing, but I boil it for dishes. Another step that's a bit of a pain on any day, but especially difficult on a day like this. Boiling water, madly rocking boat--you get the picture. I'll wait until it cools a bit before I attempt to pour it into the sink.
It continues to be overcast and rainy, and as an added bonus we are now seeing flashes of lightning. It's always a concern for sailboats, with our big metal pole sticking up 67 feet into the sky, because if we were hit by lightning, we would lose all of our electrical and navigation instruments. We really don't want to rely solely on paper charts to get us into a tricky harbour. No, thank you.
We pulled into Cockburn Harbour and dropped anchor at 1:50. We were getting everything snugged up when we found the source of the tick, tick, tick sound from the night before. A dead tern was lying on our port side deck. Carey thinks it must have hit one of our stay wires in the dark. Poor thing. It was a beautiful black bird with white under its wings and belly.
Our next task was to check in at Customs and Immigration. We have to check in within 24 hours of arriving in TCI, and since we arrived last night, we have to check in today. We dinghied into Seaside Marina (which is more like a small grocery store with a few derelict boats along a crumbling stone wall). They contacted the Immigration officer who came to the store to complete the paperwork and stamp our passports. Then, we had to walk about four blocks to the Customs building. We walked by abandoned buildings, crumbling rock walls, men drinking beer in the street outside a bar, and rundown homes and businesses. We just about walked right past the Customs building, because it looked like another abandoned building. Boy, this is a depressed area, in every sense of the word. As we walked the streets, most of the adults of the village looked at us suspiciously and silently, but the kids and teens were friendly, smiled, and said hello. We cleared into Customs and paid the $50 fee (cash only, of course), then went looking for an ATM to replenish the coffers. We found a Scotiabank ATM in a rundown wooden building--just like home, it was red and white. Haha.
We didn't stick around in town. There's nothing here we need or want--prices in the grocery store were exorbitant and the one restaurant was filling up with men and beer bottles. After returning to the boat, we rechecked the weather forecast and our charts to see when we could leave here and where we could go. Uh oh, it looks like we are going to be stuck here for several days. The weather forecast is for 25-30 knots of wind, along with huge swells, and thunderstorms for the next 5 days. The earliest we will be able to leave is Monday or Tuesday. Let's hope this storm moves through quicker than expected, because we'll be stuck on our boat at anchor the entire time.
We have now travelled over 4000 Nautical Miles (that's over 4600 statute miles) on this trip. Woohoo!
Thursday, March 23, 2017
Today, we are going to tackle some of the repair jobs needed on the boat. Carey's list includes finding our foul weather gear, fixing the nav lights and steaming light, finding the source of the chartplotter problem, fixing the stove igniter, repairing a small tear in the jib, and fixing the stereo system (which turns itself on).
I will repair our Canadian flag (it has begun to fray and needs to be rehemmed), make raisin bread, wash and bleach my white shoes (from our trek through the mud to the waterfall in Limon), update the blog, do some laundry, and possibly stencil our registration numbers onto our dinghy. We have lots of time to work through our lists, so we can take lots of breaks.
Although this is supposed to be the most protected harbour in the TCI, that's not necessarily saying much. Like the Bahamas, these islands are very low, so they don't cut off the wind much. We roll a bit, but nothing too bad, so far. Any way you look at it, this will be a good test for our Mantus anchor. Let's hope Mr. Mantus is up to it!
This is Puerto Bahia Marina in Samana
