We are in the Dominican Republic

Wednesday night we had to get a good nights rest for the long trip on Tuesday. It was a calm rainy night and it was hot. The bugs came in out of the rain and found Laurie not covered up and they had a feast.

You can see all the bites and they are all over both arms and legs.

 



We left Caicos at 6am Tuesday morning on a calm day. It was going to be a long trip 150 miles witch should take 24 to 30 hours. On our way out of the channel we saw our buddy boats off in the distance. It looks like they got an earlier start than we did so we had a little catching up to do. About 5 miles out on the banks we received an escort for about 5 minutes.

After our escort it was straight east until Big Sand Cay just south of Grand Turk Island. When we passed from the banks to the ocean the big swells started to roll our way. Luckily we were going to be turning south soon. We passed by Big Sand Cay around 4pm and the water was so clear and blue. You could see the bottom in 50 feet of water.

 

So we were right on schedule for the turn at Big Sand Cay and now it was the overnight sail to Luperon Dominica Republic. We picked a great night for this passage because the water was very calm but that meant no sailing, it was motoring all night. All was well until around 3am. We notice lightning in the south and we wondered if it was coming are way. There seemed to be storms in a few locations but the one we were looking at was a bad one for lightning. I have never seen lightning like this. There were huge bolts of lightning lighting up the area and it was striking the water about every 3 minutes and I didn’t like that at all. Finally we heard from other boats that it was moving North West away from us. At about 5am we could smell dirt coming from the land. This was written in the book Passages South by Bruce Van Sant and it was true, there was a smell of dirt in the air for about 30 minutes and then it was gone. Arriving at Luperon had to be timed so we could arrive around 8am. So the last hour we slowed our speed to arrive on time to enter the channel. The reason was to get there in light is so you can watch for shoals and coral heads. 

 

 Also so Pappo can get us tied up to a mooring ball. When you arrive here Pappo is the guy that will help you with anything you need so it will be great to have him around. So now we are so tired and so hot we just want to go to sleep but now we have to check in. Dominican is a little different than anywhere else. First Pappo brought over the Commandancia to our boat. He checks you in and out of the harbor. You have to be checked in and out of every harbor you move to and he also takes your check out papers from the last country you came from( papers are called Dispatcho). Next we had to go into shore and check in with immigration. Next in line was Harbor Control, and then there was Customs and finally Agriculture who had to check if you were bringing in any vegetables. All this and we were dead tired and very very hot. Now we had to go to the bank and get peso’s and then the phone store to set up our data on our phone. Finally back to the boat and rest. We slept a while and the relaxed the rest of the afternoon.  Luperon is not a clean town! What we saw today will change our mind about staying here too long. Tomorrow we will head back into town and take a few pictures and see what’s there for us.