Dominican Republic

At 9.30 am and after a long boring sail we land in La Samana. Dominican Republic is a huge green island and we are no more used to that after being such a long time on the very tiny and dry St Martin. To reach the Port of Call La Samana, you have to sail nearly the whole Samana Bay which take quite a while. However, we enjoye the green coconut trees plantations starting from the top of the mountains down to the sea. Sometimes a small hidden bay with a tiny sandy beach surrounded with coconut trees appears and we swear to come back!

Just anchored, a small hardly floatable dinghy full of 5 people ask permission to come on board, telling us they represent the Authorities. One can hardly write and does it at the back of an old form which has nothing to do with a clearance, one wears a pass from the port authorities and has documents, a third one is a young navy guy wearing a green uniform, the fourth one keeps writing dawn everything, and the last one is the water taxi driver as well as a kind of translator and has nothing to do with the authorities! They ask for our passport and for their kind visit on board we have to pay 10 USD, for anchoring in the harbor, 10 USD where asked as tips for the 4 "authority workers" and the water taxi guy requested 5 USD for bringing the 4 guys on board! With Las Brisas, it was a different fee!

Ashore, some kids stand on the dock and offer different little services to get a few pesos. A bad habit the americans so used to tip in their countries, transport everywhere in the world. 1/3 of the People in Dominican Republic leave under the poverty line and now everyone tries to get money an easy way. Sometimes it is better to give them food than money. As I was walking in the street eating an ice cream a little boy came to me offering to clean my shoes, as their was no way to make my shoes shine I refused, so he asked for 5 pesos to buy food, as we had no local money I gave him my ice cream which he really appreciated. La Samana is quite a famous tourist site because of the whales watching and the whole tourist activity of the town focus on it. In the morning you can see big buses dropping some tourists on a tiny dock to load different type of embarkation. They sail out in the bay and come back in the evening. Every one seems rather happy of that day trip.

There is a long water front promenade. Very few people gather there except at the end of the afternoon. Everyone around belonging a vehicle, whether it is a motorbike or a car is a potential taxi. Motorbikes stops every five seconds to offer you a lift at a cheap price. The most organized have transformed their motorbike into a sort of rickshaw which gives a kind of oriental look to the town. The cost of living in Dominican Republic is for us rather low so we can go shopping and as we found a cyber café we checked our emails and also gave a few phone calls too. With Las Brisas we went to the Maritim Office to pick up our clearance which were supposed to be ready. They do not even hold one of the paper the guys did onboard Iritis! A secretary agreed to type our documents onto an old mechanical type writer, while the commandant was having a hair cut in his office! Once the documents ready, we were told to come back the next day as documents were to be countersigned by a superior! absent at this time of course! Luckily Eric and Adriana, fluent in Spanish, managed to talk to the commandant, after his hair cut was done, whom declared we could be leaving but arriving in Luperon, our next stop, we were to show the documents to customs and immigration representatives! They also let us know that we won't have to pay anything in Luperon.

Masses of water were falling on La Samana during the end of the day which completed our water tank once again. A storm with lightnings started over our head. A guy on board his little boat asked for electronic explanations on the radio, as he got struck by lightning. Jean-Luc and Eric tried to answer him. In the morning we learned that all his electronic his destroyed.

Samana bay left behind us we passed Cabo Samana. We won't go to Luperon one way but rather do two stops. First stop after 32 miles is Puerto Escondido, the second one Rio San Juan then at the end Luperon..

The weather is not too good and quite cloudy and unstable. The sea is completely covered with coco, coconut trees leaves, and logs carried through all the rivers to the sea. As we reached a first bay a huge shower is falling on us and while sailing along the shole it looks as we are in patagonia! While trying to enter the little bay, a small embarkation arrived close to us with 3 men aboard. One of them let us know he is the commandant showing the gun he carries. Pretty strange welcome. They only noticed our boat, Las Brisas was still outside the bay. We turned back meeting Las Brisas and then the little troop disappeared! We headed to the newt bay 5 miles farther, calmer and with no strange welcome! Due to the heavy rains the sea water is brown! Cows and donkey move on the beach and the land is even for sale! Sandy beach, coconut trees, why not?

We are not too close to the beach and we can see a group of tourists walking along. There are a few "lolo" but as soon as the tourists left they disappeared too. Every thing is quiet, just the thunder keeps going and sometimes you can see the sandy beach and the fishermen boats likein the day time. Only two boats remains in the bay Iritis and Las Brisas.

6.30 am and we have 52 miles to sail to Puerto Valle. While sunrise is on and as the wind is still very low we start thinking that Las Brisas should be named Petolas! The wind shows up later on in the day and dolphins plays all around the boat.Wonderful desert beaches along the coast can be seen, some grotto in the hills, and while arriving close to Puerto valle plenty blow holes are on! Fascinating. The reef protects Puerto Valle and buoys are invisible. Depth sounder again is more than a help!

Puerto Valle is very quiet fishermen village. A very long sandy beach lies all along the bay with coconut trees and bushes full of White Egrets waiting the sunset to cross and join the other side for the night. They fly right over our head in silence. The fishermen boats are anchored there. Just the merengue music going on the beach is heard, today is a vacation day, none worked.

53 miles to go and we are in Luperon. The wind is lazy and late to show up! We set the spinaker which take us to 6 knots. Jean-Luc catches 2 barracudas we let go, and one small tuna we keep for lunch! A huge mahi-mahi got trapped with the line but she managed to escape right at the moment we were going to bring it on board!!! shame! No mahi-mahi for tonight!

We can see Puerto Plata from far away and it seems to be an important harbor. We still have a few miles to go on before reaching Luperon and Las Brisas is faster than us. Then Luperon is right there and from the sea you can hardly see there is a mooring inside. Luperon is right at the end of the mangrove and the way in is very badly shown again. We keep our eyes onto the depth sounder. After a bit of stress we are in!.

On one side you have a large bay with no sailing boat just a real beautiful mangrove and on to the other side you can see one mast, then two then around 50! A real hurricane shelter! Not too much wind and I guess it must be full of mosquitoes happy to find still well fed sailor to suck them! Jean-Luc says it looks like Grenada. We anchor there. Most of the boats are American or Canadian. Two French boats are there, they left almost at the same time as we did from St Martin, "La Fançoise" an orange fluo catamaran is heading back to France and a monohull "Calypso" from Arcachon sailing to the east coast of united states trhough the Bahamas.

Early next morning the authorities come on board and despite what we have been told in La Samana we have to pay again, and the cost this time is going to be 75 USD. Bad surprise! There is 10 usd for the Agriculture control and we obviously forget to declare we have a clandestin passenger as Ratus Norgevicus who embarked Iritis in the BVI. Here they don't ask for tips directely but tell us it is appreciated to give something to the harbor master, so we give him what change we have left 4usd, and he is polite enough not to check in front of us how much we give him!

Once they are gone we start to look for our rat. We think he died, because of that very unpleasant smell in the toilets. As we discover the dead rat, we drop it in the sea right away. When we fount out a rat was our guest we managed to put aside almost all the food he could get to starve him. While in PuertoRico, we bought the perfect stuff to catch Ratus-Ratus. Unable to find food except the one purchased only for him, which he did not seem to appreciate as he never touched it. But he did really appreciate my christmas paréo with pearls, and has eaten almost half of it, which probably caused an indigestion and... its death ! or maybe was ratus-ratus sea sick, who knows? anyway we found it dried behind the trash!!!

On this very calm and protected mooring, several sailing boats are unoccupied and someone take care of them for usd 5 per day. They come to start the engine regularly, open to freshen up. An american couple issue a little booklet to inform every boat coming in of what is going on here and where to find what. So when you have a look at their flier you just imagine the town pretty big , and when you read you can also do your laundry at the marina, you expect A marina!! The truth is a little different, but there is a marina anyway!

The dinghy dock is located at the end of the mangrove close to a very long cement dock where big boats seems to be here for ever. From the dinghy dock you have to walk about 5 minutes to a kind of customs control where a man or two sit there. On one side you have the customs office in a blue container. On the other side up a little hill you have the Immigration office. Then in between a road is leading to town. The wooden houses are very modest from the outside, no window just a small door opened onto the road. Inside you can see a nice comfortable little house with rocking chairs, a bed, TV, radio but the floor is just the soil. The merengue music is on in every home. There are a few little groceries selling Presidente, the national beer, corned beef, egs rice, milk and vegetables. There is a fish market and a butcher shop. Bigger groceries at the end of the main road offers a better choice even though it is not too clean. Most of the local people do not have a fridge so they go shopping every time they need something. Prices here are so low and you can find great fresh vegetables.

Luperon has an important phone center where you can call worldwide for a very reasonable price. There is also a cyber center with 6 computers, but only one modem which is pretty slow when the 6 of them are connected together. Be patient it is only 1.50 usd for an hour. A few restaurants and bars stands along the main road and there is also a gas station at the town entry. If you need to do big supplies, it is easier to rent a car and go to Puerto Plata or Santiago, which is only an hour drive away.

As we read there was a Marina, we dinghy up to the so call marina and realize it has really nothing to do with what we were thinking about! There is a dock, a micro shipyard, an enormous restaurant, and a laundry. In fact restaurant and laundry are closed as there is no electricity today! Yacht Club should be a better name than Marina.

On April 22nd, we decided with Las Brisas to take a Wa-Wa (local bus) to reach Puerto Plata and then come back with a taxi after buying supplies for both our boats. As we wait for the wa-wa a taxi stops and offer to take us and do some tourism, take us shopping and back to Luperon, for the same price as the Wa-Wa, which we accept right away. We got in the car, an old Chevrolet, no key to start it, no more shock absorber, and no need of gasoil as the car works gas! We are 5 in the car plus the driver.

The roads are not too bad and we enjoy watching at the green land around us. Along the road quite a number of people ride horses or donkeys. Some have motorbikes. Taxis seem to be used very easily and despite ours is full, people keeps calling for it from the roadside. As we get nearer to Puerto Plata, civilization comes back to us and there are a lot of advertising boards along the road, or taged on walls. Hilario our driver take us to the cable car which bring us on top of the Isabel Mount. As the sky gets dark and rainy we are not so sure to go but one of the guide assure us it won't be rainning. So on we go. While we go up the scenery over the ocean is fantastic and you can see the reefs, on the mountain side it isa lush vegetation, diversified with so many flowers. 850 m high is the top of the mount and there we discover Rio de Janeiro!! It is incredible but they did rebuild the christ on top of it.

Lucky we are!, not a drop of rain, the guide was right! so we can go through that tropical rainforest where grow heliconia, red ginger (alpinia purpurita), begonias, amaryllis, hibiscus and many other beautiful flowers only my brothers are able to give me the correct name. Trees are fascinating too with royal palm trees, ixora a kind of coffee tree, it is so great and I really enjoy it. The temperature at the top is rather cool but bearable without a pullover!.

Back to the bottom we meet Hilario and keep on visiting Puerto Plata, which is a real town, with a Rum manufacture, a wine manufacture, a huge port activity etc. Hilario wants us to visit the fort which looks like Brouages. From the Fort you have a full view of the big ships and tankers getting in an out of Puerto Plata. Then we go to the only beach of Puerto Plata and a statue of Neptune is over watching town. Tourism is over for now as we have to go shopping. The supermarket is really a big supermarket and Las Brisas and us are doing our supplies. When Hilario realize that he's got to make everything stand in the car included us, he have a shock. But we manage to do it and reach Luperon at night.

The next day we meet Hilario to be our driver again to take all of us to hike some waterfalls. As long as we are on the road everything is fine but then we have to take a small path, through the sugar cane fields, large enough for the car to get in to reach the river. Once on the riverside we have to cross it, which Hilario forgot to tell us earlier, and without being really well equipped we manage our way. There is a bit of current and fresh water is not bad anyway! Then from the other side a 20 minutes hike in the river most of the time is supposed to take us to a waterfall. We are not alone on this hike as quite a lot of tourists coming from different resorts are there too. Imagine the underground in Paris, at 3 pm!

The first waterfall ahead of us is the one we are supposed to j climb up to get to the source. As I have a lumbago I have to give up unfortunately. I wanted so much to do it. Adriana and Valentine stay with me as it is unthinkable to have the kid going up and down. Forget about every kind of safety here. No helmet, no wetsuit either! Only Jean-Luc and Eric go. As there is only on way to go up and down, they have to jump in the pound from the top of the waterfall. When they come back they really enjoyed it and had fun in natural toboggans! Of course the water temperature was just 23°C!

Back to Luperon we decide to enjoy a restaurant in town! We did not expect it to be so difficult to find but finally had cold chicken, cold rice and peas. The Microwave was out of order! but the bottle of water and the beers fully frozen!!

This morning Hilario, is meeting Jean-Luc and Eric to fetch some gasoil at the gas station where it is cheaper and where you know how many liters you really get. Then we all decide to sail away from Dominican Republic on the next day in the evening, to the Turcs and Caicos islands.