Greetings from the Dominican Republic!
We got here Monday morning, August 11. So far we’ve been through the Bahamas and
the Caicos islands. We have not had enough time in either country, and wish we weren’t
in such a hurry. We have gotten enough of a taste that we have some definite ideas of
where to go and what to do on the way back, though.
We are still doing fine and enjoying our cruise of almost 2300 miles. We went through
the Bahamas pretty quick, considering how long the chain is. All of the Bahama islands,
excepting New Providence where Nassau is, are very lightly populated. We anchored at
Rum Cay for four nights, the first night at a beach surrounded by coral heads and reefs.
A wrecked freighter attests to the extensive reefs off the coast. We came in under good
light, and with Laura in the bow, we worked our way in to the beach. We set two anchors
in an irregular open patch of sand perhaps 150 feet across. There were absolutely no
footprints of any type anywhere in sight. Usually, there are footprints above the high tide
mark in the dry sand which only get erased during storms. The beach had not been
visited for some time. The reefs make it pretty tough to get in this area, and with no
civilization around, few cruisers take the trouble to work their way into this secluded
spot. Steve was a bit uneasy there, since a change in wind direction can drive you into
the reefs and with poor light, (like if a storm comes up at night) there is absolutely no
way you could snake your way out without running aground. Even so, it was still
beautiful. After one night, we motored around the island to the town area. Rum Cay has
a population of about 70 and only got electricity two years ago. Several of the houses
still had solar panels installed that they had used prior to getting utility power. We
anchored there a few nights waiting for weather so we could depart for the Caicos.
The trip to the Turks and Caicos took longer than expected, so we pulled into the
Bahamian island of Mayaguana to anchor for a few hours so we could hit the Caicos at
dawn rather than at 2:00 AM. We must’ve picked the worst anchorage in the Caribbean!
No joke, we were rolling through 45 to 60 degrees. We toughed it out as long as we
could, and then left. Landfall on the Caicos was fairly nerve-wracking. The approach to
Provo (the port of entry) is through a shallow channel surrounded by reefs. We tried to
follow a guide book’s directions and wound up wandering to the north of the channel into
an absolute reef garden. Reefs are great to dive on, but translate into boat-eating rocks
when you are sailing. We got out of there without hitting bottom, but don’t know how.
It was two straight hours of Laura at the helm with Cory and Steve standing at the bow
trying to find a way out of the labyrinth and shouting instructions back to Laura. We
draw six feet, and saw 5.9 feet several times. Once in the Caicos, we had a great time
enjoying the people and island. We sailed back down the channel after a few days at
anchor, and found it a piece of cake west-bound. Never less than 12 feet of water and no
boat-eating rocks! We moored at West Caicos, an uninhabited island with dive buoys on
the protected west coast. The dives were spectacular, a 40 foot bottom ending at a sheer
600 foot cliff. We only had our four tanks, so Cory and Steve dove once, and Laura and
Cory made the second dive. Cory did great for his first deep ocean dive. Several
commercial liveaboard dive operations use these buoys, and we can see why. It really
has some good diving. On the way to these moorings, we enjoyed numerous playful
dolphins swimming right off our bow. It was tremendous!
We left the Caicos for the Dominican Republic and sailed 24 hours until wind shifts
forced us to use the diesel and motor-sail the last six hours. The first part was great,
Wendy was steering, the seas were moderate, and all we had to do was relax and enjoy
the ride. A word about Wendy - Orontes is equipped with a mechanical wind vane for
self-steering. Once the sails are properly trimmed, the wind vane is adjusted to hold your
course in relation to the wind. In other words, if the wind shifts 30 degrees, the wind
vane will shift the boat course 30 degrees to keep the sails full of air. Lines are run from
the wind vane to the helm so that the boat steers herself. It’s really great, and entirely
mechanical so no electricity is required. Steve understands some people like their wind
vanes so much, they actually refer to them as Bob. Well, Steve likes Wendy Wind Vane
better, so on Orontes, she is Wendy.
The last six hours of motor sailing were pretty rough. We were going right into 20 knot
winds and eight foot choppy seas. We dropped down to El Castillo, off of Cabo Isabela,
about ten miles west of our intended destination (the town of Luperon) and anchored.
The Dominican Navy came out to check us out. This amounts to two guys in their early
twenties in camouflage uniforms with one rifle. They brought another guy as a translator,
and a fisherman to drive them out on his boat. These guys really have it a bit rough since
they are supposed to be the Navy but don’t even have a boat. They are prohibited by
some regulation from hiring the fisherman, so the cruisers (us) pay five dollars to the
fisherman for use of his boat to bring the Navy out to scrutinize us. Makes for some
twisted logic, but they had the rifle.
We presented the Navy guys with eight beers after they were done filling out what Steve
assumed was a boarding report of some kind. One of our guide books said it was best to
offer them a small gift or they would search your boat looking for suggestions. Hence
the beer. They were very polite. Apparently, there is a real strong westerly current on
the north coast of the DR, and it is fairly common for cruisers to wind up at Cabo Isabela
when bound for Luperon, so they are used to English speaking gringo cruisers.
We left the next morning for Luperon early, before the trade winds pipe up and start
hammering us with those eight foot seas. We pulled into Luperon about 8:30 AM and
found a whole slew of sailboats already here. We are boat number 40. This is probably
the best hurricane hole in the Caribbean, with very high mountains on all sides of us. The
anchorage is at the end of an upside-down Y shaped passage so that only a very narrow
channel opens to the sea. The holding ground is soft mud and the whole area is
surrounded by mangroves which are excellent for tying to during hurricanes. All but one
or two of these boats are here until after hurricane season. There is a small marina which
provides free water, showers and free trash disposal for all of us anchored here. On
Mondays (our first night here) the marina restaurant opens for happy hour for the
cruisers, hosts a pot-luck dinner where the cruisers bring the food, the marina provides all
the dishes and silverware, and, get this, washes all of the dishes for us, even the pans that
we brought our food over in. And Happy hour prices all night. This is a great place!
The probability of hurricanes increases with each day, so we have decided to stay for 4 to
6 weeks. This means we will not be getting as far as Bonaire and Venezuela, but at least
we are secure and relatively safe. It has taken a lot of pressure off of us and hopefully we
can now start to enjoy our adventure more!! We spend some days at anchor fixing stuff
on the boat, writing or reading. Other days we visit other cruisers at the marina or go to
Luperon to shop and visit there. We are now planning some sight-seeing tours as this
country has some beautiful mountains, waterfalls and coastline. We also see this as our
best opportunity for some mission work, so will get busy on that now that we have
decided to stay.
Cory has been our fisherman. Upon leaving Pensacola, we set out offshore to Tampa.
This was our first deep water, overnight passage. It took us three days, and Cory hooked
several fish. We landed only two, however. One we released since the passage was a bit
rolly and none of us wanted to cook. The other (a two foot Spanish Mackerel) we grilled
and it was delicious! One that got away was up to the boat and we got a pretty good look
at it. Four feet! We weren’t sure how in the world we would land it, but it threw the
hook before we could try. In the Bahamas, Cory really caught on to spearfishing. The
first time Cory & Steve went out, they saw beautiful reefs and an eight foot nurse shark,
but never got close enough to spear any good-sized fish. The second time they went out
Cory had better luck, bagging a snapper and two groupers. This was done with a VERY
close eye on the five foot shark (the toothy kind, not a docile nurse shark) that kept
cruising around. We also picked up three large conch (pronounced “conk”) off the
bottom. Conch are a Bahamian staple, but they are tough as nails to get out of the shell,
then even tougher to cut up. Properly prepared, they are very good, though.
Cory is doing well on school work. He’s finishing his next lessons for Geometry,
Physics, Health, History, and English. He is probably about 20% done with the semester.
He really does a good job of studying, especially considering that Christy is running
around providing distractions. He puts in a good 3 hours every day we are at anchor.
During passages, it has been out of the question since we are on two hour watches (2 on,
4 off). Time off watch is spent trying to sleep in a pitching, rolling boat.
Christy is doing well. She has found it very easy to make friends with the local children.
The blonde hair makes her an attraction to locals. She enjoys going to beaches, picking
up shells, and making sand castles. Laura has been working with her on snorkeling, and
she is doing well. She talks about all the fish, crabs, and other sea creatures that she has
seen. We are using the basic phonics books and other “I can learn” books that she enjoys
working on. We play games like “what sound does the letter ‘B’ make?” It makes her
feel important that she has to go to school, too. She loves to play Crazy Eights, Go Fish,
War and Matching, which are the card games she knows so far. She is really getting
good at boat knowledge and using her life jacket regularly.
One thing which has worked out very well is the laptop computer. Cory and Christy both
use it a lot, primarily for games, although Cory also types some of his assignments.
Before we left, Steve bought several $5 educational CD games for Christy. We’re
rationing them out one at a time to preserve novelty. We keep the laptop in a foam
padded waterproof case, which we hope will protect it from the salt atmosphere. Typical
life expectancy of a laptop is supposed to be about 18 months. This makes it a pretty
expensive disposable! We hope ours does better.
Orontes has weathered the trip fine. We have had some minor equipment failures, but
nothing with the boat proper. While anchored at Rose Island (about 5 miles east of
Nassau) we were hit by a pretty strong storm about midnight. We have oversized ground
tackle (anchors, chain, and rode) so we didn’t drag. However, when we woke up, Cory’s
inflatable dinghy was upside down, having been flipped by the storm. Since his outboard
was attached, it was now submerged in sea water. Steve spent most of the morning
getting it drained, the carb cleaned out, and running WD-40 (luckily he stocked up in the
states, it’s $8 a can in Nassau) through it, but never got a single spark. Steve felt he had
removed all danger of internal rust, so he let it sit to dry out the ignition. As days went
on, he tinkered with it, getting short bursts of running before he discovered the needle
and float were out of adjustment. Steve finally got it running properly at Rum Cay. We
were not so fortunate with our second outboard, a 6 hp Johnson. We were making a 5
mile upwind trip to our next anchorage and underestimated the strength of the wind and
waves. It turned out to be a bit rougher than expected. Somewhere in that five mile trip
we lost the outboard off the dinghy we were towing. It ripped part of the transom board
(a sacrificial plywood piece screwed to the fiberglass transom) out, which at least means
it was reluctant to leave us. It was reluctant to leave us. It was running perfectly, so we
hope someone finds it and salvages it. Outboards are pretty dear out here, and it hurt to
lose it.
Fortunately, that has been our only major mishap. We have had some pretty strong
storms, both at sea and at anchor. As far as we can tell, the whole west coast of Florida
from Tampa south is one big thunderstorm. When you are at the helm of a sailboat
making 5 knots, you are pretty limited in your ability to outrun one. One evening, Steve
managed to duck between two forming thunderheads and only go through about 15
minutes of light rain and not so light wind gusts while two severe storms formed on either
side of us. Another time, Cory and Steve sat in the cockpit and debated which course to
take to avoid two storms in front of us. We chose to take the storm to theport (left) since
it was raining but we saw no lightning. We headed for it to watch it grow into a monster,
complete with fourth of July type lightning, while the other storm faded to nothing. We
got hammered. We’ve decided that it can blow like blazes, rain buckets, but there is
nothing like the nervousness (translated: gut-wrenching fear) of holding onto the steel
wheel of a 55 foot lightning rod during a storm. Except for the coast of Florida, we
haven’t had that pleasure very often. Oh, we did get a real close-up of a waterspout in the
Keys. Luckily it was about 2 miles away downwind and moved away from us (the day
we left Florida).
How are things with you all? Thanks for sending the CME forms to Mom. She’s mailing
them this week to us, so we have not received any mail in awhile. I’ve actually missed
mail a lot more than I thought, but I’m getting used to it now. We’ve had some bouts of
homesickness and missing the luxuries of home, but this month is a lot better! How’s
work? Are things going well with PBE?
How’s the start of school been? Good, we hope! We really do miss being able to visit or
pick up the phone and talk for awhile with you all! How’s our whopper-chopper holding
up? Have I been replaced for Guacamole Queen yet? David, how’s work? Hope things
are picking up for you all!
How’s the new church? Hope you all are still pleased there. How’s all the families?
Please give everyone our best and pass this on to Menger’s (I did send them a quick note
for Joan’s birthday!)