Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico

2006 Log #4

Well Sea Cycle arrived on the western shore of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez at 10am March 24, 2006 exactly just when they tell you not to arrive because the ferry from the DR pulls in choking customs and immigration for hours. Lucky for us we were processed in forty minutes flat. We tidied up the boat and then moved down the west coast to Boqueron bashing on the nose wet and wild all the way. As a fitting climax to the 50 hour trip just as we were entering the harbour at dusk (always a trying time with an unknown harbour) we were challenged by the Puerto Rican patrol boat even though we had checked in properly with the authorities at Mayaguez and were flying our courtesy flag. After an engaging mix of Deb smiling , spanglish and hand sign with a few “No comprende Espanola” they let us go and we moved into the anchorage, got the hook down and fell asleep right through all the disco beat that came pounding from the shore until half way through the night. The patrol really spot check the yachts coming along this coast. Both people and drug smuggling are constant here, as once you are into Puerto Rico you are as good as in the States. In fact if there is one constant in the Caribbean it is the smuggling, whole island economies are and have been built on it. Those duty free islands were there long before the cruise ships came along.

The passage from Luperon in the DR to Mayaguez was about 290 nm over ground which took 49 hours. In a passage that travels along against a mountainous backdrop and across a channel forcing itself from an Atlantic trench at 26,0000 feet to 700 feet on the Caribbean end you are bound to get a bit of everything, just like the movie The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The good was a beautiful calm run during day light hours with a stunning vista of mountains. The bad was a coast that despite an offshore weather report calling for less than 10 knots of gradient wind from the north east manages to creates its own breeze during the day that has to be felt to be believed. Such a large land mass acts as a heat sink that makes easting during the day nearly impossible. You pretty well have to wait for a west wind (in the east wind trade belt) or light and variable conditions. Conversely the island gives off an incredible night lee that blankets the coast waters allowing you a good run, until about 8am when the sea breeze kicks in. A lot of cruisers will do the coast at night and hide behind one of the capes, not the greatest anchorages but okay if the conditions are right, meaning no swell, which you shouldn’t have anyways if you were coasting east. This is the same north coast that Columbus lost the Santa Maria on while pulling the boat at night with row boats because of the same conditions.

We spent 17 days in the DR at the Luperon anchorage a Y shaped harbour about half way along the north coast. This was a different experience after two months in the Bahamas which were all low lying with sparse vegetation. When we crossed from Big Sand Cay and the Caicos we spotted confusing lights in the middle of the night, thinking they were freighters or cruise ships, but, they turned out to be house lights on the mountainside The mountains were very lush. The harbour at Luperon is reputedly the best hurricane hole in the Caribbean, maybe, but I don’t think I would want to put it to the test. Backed by low hills inland and shouldered by a larger range on its sides, the shoreline is wreathed with a thick mangrove which offers the best boat protection for a boat. The theory is that the mountains would knock down the winds while the mangroves would provide cushions for the boats. During the day though, I observed a constant sea breeze which created its own one to two foot chop even though after dark it turned into a mill pond. We couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if storm surge penetrated the anchorage. I guess it would all depend on the direction of the hurricanes path.

The village at Luperon by North American standards would be third world but nobody seems to be suffering of wanting and everyone was friendly.
We were never harassed or even saw what we would call street people. Everybody was trying to make a living even down to the roadside vendors trying to sell items you take for granted at home. Dogs, chickens and garbage everywhere covered with diesel or two stoke smells and sounds. We hardly cooked on board eating out was so cheap. As a reference a cheese burger with fries and a beer would cost about $4.00.
We went up the coast to La Isabella close to the Haitian border twice, once visiting Columbus’ original settlement site(which was mistakenly bulldozed when someone ordered it cleaned up for a UN inspection) and the second time going to a small hotel built by ex-pats from Belgium who have put together an interesting Taino museum. Mostly of pieces they saved from the locals.
Both times we were on motorcycles with buddy boats who were Harley owners. I tried to rent a scooter with no luck so had to lie about my experience renting a small Yamaha.
The first mile was a little iffy and all I could think about was how I was going to explain to the kids I killed their mother, but in the end we got the hang of it and actually were the ones who talked the others into the second trip. I am sure there are locals still talking about the gringo who went sputtering and gear shifting through the villages. The hardest thing about it was maneuvering through the obstacle course of goat and cow herds. The other have to do thing here is the waterfall trip. This consist of climbing up through a mountain gorge stream up over seven waterfalls and then sliding and jumping down them to get back to the bottom. Our first clue should have been the lifejackets and helmets they put on us. Not a chance this would be allowed at home with the guides urging you up falls with hand pulls, smiles and feet on ledges where no foot should go .The finale was a 30 foot drop into the last pool surrounded by very big rocks. Deb turned out to be the only female in our group to jump, the rest taking the chicken ladder, she just happened to be the first lady jumper with all the men at the bottom telling her no problem just go. The others had more sense.

Santa Domingo is the oldest city in the western hemisphere so we had to visit. The city is located on the south coast so we took a local bus (5 dollars for a 5 hour trip) right through the center of the island crossing the mountain range and getting to see a good cross section of the country.
There are certain times in your life when you know you have reached a benchmark. Mine in travel was the bus trip. It’s not everyday when your fellow traveler is a chicken riding along in a hand bag held by a breast feeding tico or the bus becomes so full that they lay boards across the aisles to seat more passengers. Arriving in Santa Domingo was wild, a mix of old being encroached by the modern. Driving in, major intersections were jammed by walking vendors trying to sell water, ices, papers, fruits, candy and lotto to the vehicles between light changes. The infrastructure would be shut down in North America by safety inspectors. Twisted electric wires dominate the streetscape and there were a lot of generators in front of stores running air conditioners inside. Heat and noise everywhere. From the bus station we took a taxi to a B & B (Betty’s) which we had booked from Luperon. The B & B turned out to be part art gallery, boutique and hostel run by an American lady for the last twenty five years right down in what is known as the Colonial district which is the oldest part of the city by the port area. This is where the original city was and in fact a lot of the buildings are original especially the museums and port buildings. Walking around you can actually trace the old city wall through the communities making it an interesting hike. The main streets are very cosmopolitan and geared to tourists which they bus in from the all inclusive resorts although I don’t see how they could see anything meaningful in that short a time frame. Any touring you want to do you should do before 11am since it gets too hot to walk around.
We visited three museums along with the oldest church in the Caribbean, all well worth doing. Lots of settlement history and in fact we saw a collection of cannon balls claimed to of been shot at the city by Francis Drake during his attack. Columbus pervades all things here but is also attacked by some as a destroyer of the Taino culture. The open markets were worth the walk as they were not in the tourist area so again you got to stroll through the neighbourhoods and we shopped at their largest local dept. store (La Sirena) where you see things you haven’t seen for years at home. I even spotted a garlic type Brylcream, imagine. Getting insulin was interesting I just walked into a Pharmacy didn’t have to show my doctors letter or script they just brought a container from the fridge and it was up to me to try and find a match. Cost was less than half the Canadian price. While I was at it I picked up some cholesterol blocker Lipitor but it was as expensive as home. I also tried to shop for history books but it took a few hours and ten stores before I scored a good comprehensive English Dominican history, everything was in Spanish, but I also got a good reprint of a Privateers log from the 16th century describing their attacks on the Spanish including Morgan’s sacking of Panama City which we visited last year. The publishers were sued by Morgan and had to cough up 200 English pounds in settlement, seems he didn’t mind doing a little pirating but once he was a sir didn’t need everyone else knowing. There is a very interesting historical description of how the men and term buccaneer evolved.

When we got back to Luperon there was a good weather window and a small fleet leaving but we weren’t ready so we spent the next five days doing boat repairs and tanking up fuel and water which all has to be jerry canned from shore. We also visited the city of Puerto Plata and restocked the ships’ stores. The biggest problem boat wise in Luperon is the tremendous growth on the bottom. This is not a harbour to swim in, and there is no safe place along the shore to anchor and scrape your bottom or prop. The growth is a hard white like lace with a barnacle in the center. Several boats left and had to come back in to clean their bottoms since they couldn’t attain any cruising speed. We bit the bullet and paid twenty-five dollars to a local diver who cleaned us off. He said we weren’t that bad and I believe him because since then I have scraped every couple of days conditions permitting and we don’t seem to be as bad as a lot of the other boats which is surprising because the Canadian gov’t won’t allow the anti-fouling the States and other countries use so we settled for CS Micron which was compatible with our old Trinidad antifouling and it seems to of worked well. Getting our clearance papers was a bit of last minute chase. Back on the beach in Georgetown they have going south meetings where the discussion of bribes comes up. It seems a little mordida or tip is expected. I never quite figured out who was doing the expecting the cruisers or the officials. No one has an official rate sheet and the amounts involved are ludicrously small, if in fact they exist. Fees in and out of the DR amounted to less than seventy dollars US. Everybody’s biggest complaint was the 20 US charge to the local commandant who runs the harbour fully dressed in battle fatigues. When you consider you can pay twenty dollars to park a car in any downtown core or 1.50 a foot for your vessel in any marina on the east coast it is a bit of a non issue. Anyways I have my own theory, “the nobody has change syndrome”. Any ATM in the DR issues 50 and 100 pesos notes. Try changing them. No grocery, restaurant or gas station has change. I think this might be where the bribe myth starts that and the fact that everybody is carrying carbine rifles around like Zapatas, but from the rusty look of them I suspect none of them have any bullets or in fact have been fired for years. Truth is beer and rum are so cheap that a gift of either accompanied with your best stupid gringo look usually gets you out of any situation. I just usually mention George Bell and the Toronto Blue Jays and I’m off the hook since these guys are baseball fanatics and the Jays won two World Series with a roster full of them.
We left Luperon 05:45 in the morning and the going, was good, till we passed Puerto Plata and came up to the cape at Sousa by noon. After that the sea breeze was in full flight and a little too much but we had committed so we slogged it out to Cabo Francis Viejo on a close haul tacking away at about 3.5 knots over ground and pulled into Rio San Juan just before the cape at 5pm tired and wet but conditions had calmed right down with the only problem being all the fishing pots. We had supper and decided the best thing was to keep going and get around the cape before morning when the winds would come up again. This cape also has a reputation for a lot of current running by it so it seemed the wise thing while things were calm, which they were for the first couple of hours. The east side of the cape was tough for about 3 hours from 9pm to 12am the old wet bash again then finally it settled down and we had a pleasant night run doing two hour shifts motorsailing, arriving at Capo Samana at 7am and heaving-to to refuel from the spare cans and shut all the power down so we could pull the weather on the Grundig. This is the remote part of the country known as the Dominican Appalachia. Very rocky and craggy with a deep fjord like bay on the west side at Escondido and the bigger Samana bay on the west side. German subs hid out here preying on the freighters in the Mona Passage during WWII. The locals have been oppressed and had their town burned down a couple of times in history for their refusal to speak Spanish, their ancestors being American freed slaves who immigrated to form a new colony. The area is renown for its smuggling activities and you are well warned to lock your dinghy and take security precautions. We decided again since the weather remained calm with no cold fronts to move on and had a good day of motor sailing averaging between 6 and 7 knots making the Mona and the Hourglass shoal just before night fall. We will check Samana out on the way back.

As I said before the water in this 80 mile passage funnels from 26,000 feet in the Atlantic to 750 feet in the strait. You don’t want any north winds compounding or adding to wave heights. I have to add that since leaving Toronto we have been hand steering the boat which gets pretty tiring after awhile especially on over nighters. We have two older auto pilots that came with the boat but never got around to hooking them up. In Luperon we bought a new Ray Marine 4000ST but only received it the night before leaving. Well two nights in a row you start to get fatigued. Combine that with about two hours of rough stuff and well you get the picture. It’s like a storm scene in one of the old movie sets where they keep throwing water over you except you can’t yell cut. Out in the middle of the Mona we found ourselves knocked off in pouring rain and jibed twice doing a circle. The rain stopped as quick as it came I think because we finally fell into the lee of Puerto Rico. The last three hours into Mayaguez the seas were smooth and we couldn’t get anything out of the sails so we furled them up, got the coffee going and motored in to Mayaguez.
To be continued,