Dominican Republic at last 4.17 Fri.

(first portion) Written from: Manzanillo, Dominincan Republic. 4.16 THUR

(craig points at Rum Caye, Bahama.)
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On The Island of Hispanoila.
Well here we are comfortably at anchor. Craig is working to repair a broken ‘#1 reef line.’ Angela is relaxing in the cockpit drinking her morning coffee and offering expert advice to Craig… I am below in the main salon at the dining table plugged in where the laptop electrics can reach. It’s the blissful cruising lifestyle happening. (cruising: to repair your boat in foreign locales)
Manzanillo sits on the border with Haiti, which has a pretty bad reputation for poverty, violence and crime. (Haiti has the ‘bad rap’) Manzanillo is a pretty small village with some modern conveniences. We visited some of the neighborhoods last night and it’s a cute place. *Special thanks to; Frank and his wife Lourdes for having us in to their home last night for cocktails. It was a great treat to us to enjoy a night on land in a lovely home and a chance to visit. In addition we met; Marcel and Lise Demers a cute Canadian couple living on their S/V Sea Belle up in Luperon. (they just happened to come visit yesterday) And then least – Joe the crazy New York Bronx crusty guy who moved here to ‘find a young wife.’ (from these two we are told housing in Manzanillo is cheap. ‘location,location,location.’ Touching Haitian borders? ~$20k US for a cute house ~13k sq ft. in town.)

Frank and Lourdes Lise and Marcel 'and a good time was had by all.'

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OUR PLAN for today is to pull anchor from the enclosed harbor and sail / motor out to anchor ‘at the corner’ from where we sail around the Island of Hispanoila. (right now we are nestled way back in a harbor about 2 hours from the turn) We have to do our sailing when the wind and waves allow. Mostly this means at night. During the day the wind kicks up and the waves pile up all from the direction we need to go – so that if we did sail we would almost be sitting still. Sitting still in 30+ mph winds with huge waves coming directly into our face. The boat bounces up and down like a bucking bronco and everyone is miserable. It’s better to anchor off in a harbor by day till everything settles down then move the boat till about 9am when the wind picks up again. (during the day the wind comes off the water but at night it comes off the land and is much more gentle) tonight at 8pm we start our trip east to Luperon.
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So, what happened to the BLOG?
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WHEN LAST WE LEFT OUR HERO… since I last was able to post with internet to the BLOG, we have travelled from the Bahamas to the Dominican Republic. Last post was from Sumner Point – Rum Caye. After that we sailed to Mayaguana Bahamas (a very tiny hamlet and the last spot before sailing 140 miles to the DR) here we rested for a day and got ready for our crossing to the D.R. The passage from Mayaguana took all day (6am) Monday, all night, all day Tuesday, all night and finally anchoring here 10am Wed. (tired and sleepy) We took turns at the helm and on deck with one person always on "sleep duty". So, four hours in the Cockpit and then two hours asleep. The tough part was sleeping. Sure you could doze off when sitting in the cockpit but when it was your two hours it was sometimes difficult to throw the mental switch and sleep. Also difficult was sleeping on the bouncing boat. (imagine an airplane during turbulence. Or a car over pot holes? Maybe a Greyhound bus diving over a cliff?) the most ‘exciting’ it got was 38 mile per hour winds with some swells over twelve feet high. Lots of pitching, tossing and rolling, combined with thuds, slams and bangs. With 30,000 pounds of boat climbing up a twelve foot vertical wave then crashing down the other side, the thud was concussive. Now put yourself into this equation; it’s 2am and you are tired. Your watch ends and it’s now your two hours to sleep. You go down below to a bouncing nightmare. Books thrown across the salon, while YOU ‘try’ to stay on your feet and make it to the bunk. (dining room table folds down to make a bed which is mid ships for passage sleeping) next you wedge yourself in with pillows to keep from rolling out of the bed, thrown by waves. Then you settle down to ride a bucking bronco complete with exploding noises from the crashing hull just below you. (the ‘noise’ is an irregular explosion. Crash, thud, bang, slam, boom with everything in the boat and cabinets rattling about. The kind of havoc that makes everyone put pillows over their ears.) after several minutes you get comfortable and start to doze off when the printer across the boat flies off its shelf and lands on the floor near your head waking you up again…. In addition it gets hot and stuffy below deck. All the ports and hatches have to be closed to keep salt water from flying in. so it warms up below. (think car windows rolled up and no air, in the summer) Now you take a huge wave and are thrown so violently that you become airborne in the bunk, crashing back down into your bed. Enjoy your sleep?
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I mentioned first Sleeping because that’s what you notice most – your lack of sleep. The actual sailing part has thus far (knock on wood) been pretty easy. Craigs boat s/v Hakuna Matata is equipped with redundant GPS systems for location and navigation. Chartplotter, auto pilot, radar, ATS ship finder and my friend the auto pilot. So even a novice can "sail it" when craig sets the sails, charts the course and all I do is "monitor the auto pilot." It’s like a video game you see your boat on one screen and steer it along (via the auto pilot) toward pre-designated targets. (waypoints) the goal is to not run it into anything…
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Angela does the cooking and all I do is wash dishes. So far it’s a great arrangement for me!
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When sailing I have become more relaxed with everything as I learn and gain knowledge of the systems and routines. It’s been a great opportunity for me to ‘help’ sailing on this leg of their trip. I can watch Craig and learn countless things. Stuff he does as routine are mostly foreign to me. With his many years of sailing and teaching experience he does it all so naturally while I struggle trying to tie a simple knot on the line. Also new to me is the night time sailing. But with our many stretches on this trip, I am getting better at it. A night sail is kind of like you driving down the highway with your lights turned off, no road and driving on a roller coaster. Now, throw in some large waves that crash against the boat like surprise attacks and all this when you cant see anything. It is at first unnerving. After awhile though you get comfortable with it. (lucky for us our first night sail on this trip was a full moon so we could see everywhere – sorta takes out the ‘boogeyman effect.’) so after our 140 mile trip across, these little legs are going to be easy. One night sail for 10-12 hours is much preferred to a 50 hour nonstop sleep deprived wave pounding workout.
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Well, that’s enough typing for now. It’s just after 6pm and I need to get ready to sail. It’ll take all night to make Luperon.
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I’m trying to think of other cute stories to tell and not bore you with: ‘today we sailed.’ But mostly so far we have sailed… (point A to point B on a mission)
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#1. Mayaguana French guy. Gerard . Easter Sunday Kalik. We did an Easter Sunday day of rest in Mayaguana Bahamas, the last tiny spot of island before the 140 miles passage to the Dominican Republic. We visited the tiny hamlet and met a 60’ish Frenchman Gerard. He escorted us around town and knocked on the door of the local tavern owner to have her open up their bar so we could have enjoy a local Kalik beer. (she’s cooking Easter Sunday dinner and walks across the street to unlock and sell us 4 beers) all the people were so friendly and warm we miss the Bahamas. (Gerard is retired. His wife died a few years ago so he bought a sailboat and now travels.)
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#2. Customs / yellow flag D.R. (all the guys in a single boat) We landed in Manzanillo, D.R. for our first immigration encounter. Our ‘guide’ / service consultant for fee: Frank, gathered up all the officials and brought them to us in a tiny Panga fishing boat so we could get our paperwork signed and become welcomed cruisers into the DR. we would be allowed to remove the yellow quarantine flag and instead fly the Domincan flag. (later Frank and his wife Lourdes invited us into their home to visit and have cocktails. "Presidente Beer" the local pilsner)
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#3. Will we ever get to leave? Paperwork nightmare. Manzanillo D.R. So, the next day when we try to leave harbor – "the officials" decide we need additional paperwork to exit the harbor. (the ‘magic’ paper – Dispachio) it costs nothing, and they didn’t give us one when they all sat on the boat and checked all our passports, transit, and coast guard papers. But it seems it’s a ‘new’ D.R. type of paperwork you need to get at each port of entry. SHORT ANSWER: we sat from 10am trying to leave till about 12:30p when they finally gave us the required paper. ‘free’ with a $5us graft which we didn’t pay. (all good)
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#4. $20 tip and no help… When we arrived in Manzanillo DR we ran aground in the shallow harbor. So we dropped an anchor to keep from having the tide and waves wash us further up onto the shoal. Next our anchor chain wraps around something on the bottom. All this after our 50 hour passage. (imagine how tired Craig was) then along comes Ramundo in a tiny Panga and offers to help unwrap the chain. He strips down to his underwear before I even realize what he’s doing. He dives down and helps untangle us from a large metal rod. THE STORY: craig tips the kid $20us. (the kid works for Frank and is ‘supposed’ to help us later) what happens – he takes the $20 and goes out with his friends and gets drunk and misses work the day we need him.
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#5. Phosphoresence in water when under sail. Just a quick note; the water has little sparkles in it. (like fireflies) and lights up along the hull in our wake. So you sit in the cockpit all night and have millions of stars overhead with matching sparklers below you in the water… imagine 100 miles out at sea there are no lights from land but you have a full moon, stars and sparklers everywhere you look.
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#6. Conch. A small white meat animal lives in the pretty shell the natives use for horns. (pronounced; Konk) these crawl along the sea bed via the one ‘toenail’ shaped claw they have. I was shown by the natives how to clean them. (the meat tastes almost like Lobster. ) there is a limit on how many you may harvest (I think 6) and even this is with much luck to find! Requires diving to the bottom, a hammer and knife. Simmer medium heat for about 2 min each side. (after pounding the conch flat with a a meat tenderizing hammer. Or whatever you can find) I love it and have ordered it countless times in Belize but never caught, cleaned and cooked one before. (hint: angela cooked it) yummy!
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9am. 4.17 Friday. FINALLY INTERNET! Let’s play catch up - or - We just dropped anchor in Luperon harbor. (we plan to stay anchored here for 4’ish days to rest, wash, and prepare for the transit to Puerto Rico) This was an all night sail / motor. (with a Northerly system blowing in, the waves and winds were both very reduced. So we had easy conditions for motoring 8p till 8a.) Unlike our last visit in this water, 38mph wind and 12’ seas, last night we had small rolling swells about 3’ and winds very light about 5mph. Nothing to report about the sail last night. Uneventful and safe. The Luperon harbor is full of boats anchored everywhere… once we’ve had some rest, we’ll venture out and see what’s in the town.
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The DR is very green and mountainous. I am excited about fresh veggies from the market and a chance to wash some clothes. It feels like everything has salt and oil rubbed in it.
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Sunny, warm, with very light breeze this morning in the Dominican Republic. (hoping for that ‘cold front’ to hit…)
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Xo skip
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From here, we will continue east to Puerto Rico and I fly home.