Luperon, Dominican Republic

We arrived in Luperon, Dominican Republic just over a week ago on May 21, 2015.  The check in process for customs and immigration was lengthy, a little costly at just over $150 and the military officials come aboard your boat in groups of 2-4 and they do not speak English.  Luperon is not a tourist town, but a local town with friendly, Spanish speaking people and a number of Americans and Canadians living on their boat or on land.  Everything here is very inexpensive and the exchange rate is 45 pesos to 1 US Dollar.  The cost of a 22 oz. bottle of Presidente beer (nothing smaller) is 100 pesos.  Lunch with chicken, rice, beans, and a salad is 125 pesos.  We are on a mooring ball which costs $2 US per day!  Everyone gets around on a motorcycle – we have seen an entire family of 5 on one motorcycle.  You can rent one or if you don’t drive, you can hire a motoconcho – a motorcycle with a driver and you are the passenger.  We did this on one afternoon with a group to La Isabella Beach. 

We joined another group from one of our favorite restaurants, Putula’s Bar & BBQ, and we were gone the entire day roaming the countryside and stopped for a drink and swim at Agua Verde.  There is a cable chair that will take you to the other side of the river or you could just walk down the steps.  A fresh water swim in a cool river was a treat we haven’t had in a long time.  The school children were pointing at us because there were so many “gringos” on motorcycles – not a usual site here in the Dominican Republic.  Horses and burros are used commonly as well.  Produce is sold on the roadsides everywhere.  We bought 1 pineapple, 1 melon, 1 red pepper, 4 bananas, 2 carrots, 4 mangos, and 1 avocado for 235 pesos (about $4.50).  Our group stopped for a late lunch at a roadside stand that made the best fried chicken and fried plantain for 200 pesos.  There is no place to sit, but we all managed to find a spot.  The countryside is beautiful with lush trees, plants, rolling hills and three mountain ranges.  Luperon is on the north coast of the Dominican Republic and reportedly one of the absolute best hurricane holes.  For you landlubbers, a hurricane hole is the best place to store your boat during a hurricane.

Turks and Caicos and Arrival in Dominican Republic

We have a 102 mile trip to the east side of the Caicos Banks.  We had wanted to spend some time in the Turks and Caicos, but there is developing weather which is going to last for quite a while and we had to change our plans to get to the Dominican Republic as soon as possible in a protected bay.  We departed South West Point on Mayaguana at 9:30 pm on May 19th with winds 11-15 knots and waves 2-4 feet.  This was a good sail and we entered the Caicos Banks at 7:00 am.  We continued our journey across the Caicos Banks for the remaining 55 miles, but now the wind was not in a good direction and we had to motor sail for over 10 hours to arrive at Six Hill Cay before sunset.  We rested up and spent the night here to prepare for our next overnight sail to the Dominican Republic.  We pulled anchor at 10:00 am and headed out into the Atlantic Ocean for our sail to Luperon in the Dominican Republic.  The wind was just about in the perfect direction with 14-18 knots and gusts to 23 and waves 4-5 feet.  We passed over ocean depths more than 16,000 feet deep!  We never had to tack and sailed a perfect rum line to Luperon arriving at 7:30 am the next day for a 21.5 hour sail.  These long passages are very exhausting for us since our autopilot no longer works – a new autopilot is on the list.  The sunrise was beautiful as we entered Luperon, Dominican Republic. 

West Plana Cay and Mayaguana, Bahamas

Instead of another overnight passage, we decided to sail to West Plana Cay, a 35 mile trip, before going on to Mayaguana.  West Plana Cay had many coral heads which made our entrance to the anchorage somewhat difficult.  Our passages are longer than a direct line to the next destination, because we have to sail as much as possible to conserve fuel.  The winds are directly on the nose, which means we must tack back and forth.  Mayaguana is the last island in the Bahamas before we cross to the Turks and Caicos.  We departed West Plana Cay on May 15, 2015 and ended up traveling over 12 hours for a 58 mile trip.  We wanted to motor some but developed a problem with the 5 foot seas as it stirred up more strange stuff in the fuel tank causing the engine to constantly stall.  Once we arrived, we found we had to change the fuel filter – none of which you can do in 18-22 knots of wind and 3-5 foot waves. We had a hair like substance in the filter plugging it up.  We sailed into Abrahams Bay, which is a barrier reef about 5 miles long and 2 miles wide with numerous coral heads which you must avoid.  Try to do this while your engine keeps stalling!   There are only about 350 people living on this island.  There is little here, but used as a stopping point on our way to the Turks and Caicos.  The sunsets are beautiful and there are millions of stars at night.  On May 18, 2015 we motor sailed 13 miles to the South West Point of Mayaguana in the afternoon to prepare for our overnight passage to the Turks and Caicos. 

Acklins Island, Bahamas

The next leg of our voyage was a 92 mile trip to the north coast of Acklins Island to a small protected anchorage.  Since this would be an overnight sail, we left at 2:00 pm on the afternoon of May 9, 2015.  Winds and waves were not what was predicted and were actually 15-20 knots out of the southeast with 3-4 foot waves.  This means that we had to tack more to reach our destination by sailing.  Motoring is not really an option as there is no fuel available until we reach the Turks and Caicos.  We crossed the Tropic of Cancer at 4:45 pm, we are officially in the Tropics.  The winds and waves increased and we turned on the engine only to have it seize up two hours later at 3:00 am.  Now we have no choice but to sail and we still have three-quarters of the trip left to travel.  The waves kept crashing over the top of the boat and now the salt water was coming in through our sliding windows and getting most everything wet.  If you know about salt water – it doesn’t ever dry and is corrosive.  The rest of this trip was not for the fair weather sailor.  We were constantly getting wet from the waves coming in the cockpit, the autopilot broke, the stitching ripped out of our genoa sail, the flag halyard came loose and got caught in the wind generator, water came in through the solar vent on the navigation station and got our PC’s, Kindle, iPad charging cord, phone charging cards, and stereo all wet with salt water, the boat hook flew out of the cockpit into the ocean, a 5 gallon jerry can of diesel fell over and leaked three gallons of diesel on the deck and through the window into the head, one of the life lines came off and the Sunbrella lifeline cushion flew off, the radar deflector fell down as it shredded the line, the jib sheet line came loose in one of the squalls and wrapped about 50 times around the other one, water came in through the anchor locker into the v-berth and our hanging locker and soaked all of our hanging clothes.  And by the way, our windlass anchor motor broke a few days after leaving Nassau.  This means that Chuck has to manually pull up the anchor each and every time.  This trip lasted 30 hours and 139 miles.  We went through four squalls and 12 foot seas during the last five hours. We had to tack into the anchorage in the dark with the help of our two boat buddies that we are traveling with – Circe and Panache.  It’s great to have boat buddies!  We later found out the painter line from our dinghy (stored on the deck), came loose and wrapped itself around our prop.  We stayed on Acklins Island in this uninhabited anchorage for three days to repair, fix, dry, clean and recuperate our own bodies.  The anchorage called Atwood Harbor was a calm place to recover.  

Conception Island and Rum Cay, Bahamas

On May 6, 2015 we departed Georgetown, also known as Chicken Harbor, for Conception Island, about a 50 mile trip which took eight hours.  Georgetown is called Chicken Harbor because most cruisers never go further south and usually turn around and head back north to the U.S.  The cruising south and east of this area is not for the fair weather sailor as you will read in our later blogs.  Winds were at least 20 knots and waves increased to 5 to 9 feet before we arrived in an anchorage on Conception Island.  This island is uninhabited but very pretty.  We found a raft on the beach, not sure how it got there.  This was a very rolly anchorage and we didn’t get much sleep as we tried to sleep from port to starboard instead of bow to stern so we wouldn’t be thrown around so much.  However, the sunset was beautiful. Departed for Rum Cay on May 8th for a 31 mile trip which took seven hours due to tacking.  This is another pretty island which doesn’t offer much anchorage protection, but we were able to anchor on the west side due to east winds.  Extreme caution and visual piloting skills is needed to spot the coral heads that are just under the surface.  Some of them at low tide are above the water.  Hitting any coral head would be disastrous.