Getting Ready To Leave The Dominican Republic

 

On Tuesday we sailed over to the National Park again with out other sailing friends. As we sailed we talked about our next weather window and we decided to leave early Saturday morning for Mayaquas Puerto Rico. It's going to be a 24 to 30 hour sail, we hope! The Mona Passage is a hard crossing because of wind, storms, currents, and shoals. As of Thursday night we have 4 boats going together so there is safety in numbers. So the people we are here with now have not been to the National Park yet so our buddy boat "Let It Be" offered to take us on there boat for an over night. This was much the same trip as last time but we saw so much more at the echo resort.

Here's Laurie relaxing on the front of the catamaran "Let It Be"

 Here's Frank who owns Let It Be

 The girls from left to right Laura, Laurie, Mary Grace and Laurie's holding Captain the wonder dog.

 Chris from the sail boat Temerity

 Outside seating area

 Inside Nav station

 Our room for the night with our own bathroom.

 

We took our dinghy's up the mangrove river to walk up to the restaurant.

look at these bird nest's

 

It was a 20 minute walk to the restaurant.

 

 After lunch we had a tour of the new echo resort. It's supposed to be finished by the end of June.

 Built in the side of a mountain.

 

 Top floor view

After returning to the boat we had a very relaxing evening on the big catamaran.

Next day it was back to Puerto Bahia Marina in Samana

 

Friday we prepare to make our long passage to Mayaques Puerto Rico. We will leave Saturday around 4am and hope to get there by daylight on Sunday morning.

 We are very sad that we will be leaving our long time buddy boat "Let It Be". They have to fly back to Florida for some business and then Frank has an opportunity to sail on a 52 foot catamaran from Bermuda to Spain with a fellow he met that has sailed in the around the world Volvo race. It's a great opportunity that can't be passed up. Frank and Mary Grace are thinking of a circumnavigation so this would be great experience for Frank. Good luck to Frank and we hope to see Let It Be as we pass each other next fall. We have become great friends and we will miss them very much.

Stay safe Let It Be.