LUPERON !!! DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

860 miles passage

     We finally left Fort Myers with all proper docs stamped and my visa returned to the United States of America.  Of course leaving all my “good friends of Bill” behind. That is always hard, but I was ready to turn of the TV, the internet, stopped getting stupid marina bills and leave les Amerloques  behind... I was ready  to get back outhere where everything is different and the pursuit of the perfect world is living in the unperfect one.

We waited long enough and had good weather window and we chugged along through Key west and nearly  flat condition for the first part of crossing of Gulf Stream,  which by the way can be a nasty crossing, wind and waves contrary to the powerful  2 to 3 knot current creating… well, condition that we prefer to avoid.  We  are still labeling ourselves as aging chickens of the seas, but somehow we still going regardless of our gutless attitude.

With the boys onboard I felt like a passenger on a cruise ship. I would go to sleep at 8 pm and wake up at 4 pm and do a watch till everyone would feel like waking up ( no 3 hours on and off !!). My kind of watch as I love to see the rising sun, and yes I am a morning person... We knew that we would mostly beat all the way to on the northern coast of Cuba  to the windward passage, ( hurricane season is upon us, so no slow cruising through Cuba, but cracking up toward Aruba which is out of the hurricane belt) turn right  then finally goes with the wind and waves to Jamaica. That was the original plan. But in port plans are easy, outhere the ocean has control of the situation. You are just a puppet, making sure that your strings are in order, but ultimately you going to have to endure whatever mother nature will give you. 

The boat as usual was flawless, a little cough up with the generator a broken impeller, presto repaired by Sam with the assistance of Patrick. Autopilot perfect, engine going  only at 1500 RPM and with the Gulf stream current going to 10 knots. Sam checking obsessively that all systems were A ok.  The newly installed and finally completed stabilizers have paid off their very expensive investment, by giving us not much rolling at all. ( whaoa, these work fantasticly !!!)

But as usual 24 hours after leaving Fort Myers when we came close to Cuba and started to follow the 600 miles coast .  The wind picked up ( in the nose of course !) and created a  TIGHT 4/ 5  feet chop.

That was the moment…. when we started to really beat to weather. The boat still going an average of 8.9 knot for 860 miles ( quite remarquable ) but it was hard, Acharne slamming hard on those little nasty walls. The worse was coming out of the Bahamas channels, we had walls coming out of everywhere and we were forced to slow down to 6 knots and hang on.  No one was really sea sick, but the pounding was exhausting. And progress seemed slow. Although that when the sea state resumed to the regular 4/5 seas, Acharne kept the pace up. On my watch I crossed a small sailboat tacking  in the wind and waves and I watched on the binocular,  he was getting a good beating . It was a reminder that I was still going forward, and not tacking so no whinning please !

Approaching the Windward channel the Noaa weather predictions for the Caribbean seas were :  blowing 20 to 25 knots with 8 to 12 feet seas. We also knew that the windward passage can be nasty with a funneling effect and even that we would be going with wind and weather we wanted to go through it with lesser conditions. So the options were to go for it and see what happens ( don’t like to do this unless have to ) or to continue on the northern coast and go to Dominican Republic with better weather.  But with no detailed charts of  the port of Luperon nor a guide to Dominican Republic we decided to send an email ( via the iridium sat phone ) to Vince in Alaska, and see if he could dig up some chart and email us a copy of it.  No problemo ! we got a copy of a hand sketch entrance to the Luperon, thanks to Vince, and way point, so we kept beating up forward. Acharne doing her job, keeping her speed in the condition, and the crew enduring the slamming, the crashing, the wonder when it was a bigger swell and Acharne liked it better and her 80 feet length would climb up and slided gracefully on the other side.. like riding  on a smooth back of a big creature

 Everybody was doing his job,   each wave at the time, staying story on the back deck, listening to music checking the ship traffic, catching a small tuna and a mackerel, trying to sleep, with the slamming ( good luck with that one, unless completely exhausted, then you drifted off regardless of the condition) and may be the wind would lessen and it would nicer ?

We had brief hours, when the wind would stall a bit, the seas would go smoothers and we would stop hanging on to something, then it would come back with a vengeance… We got closer to the lush and beautiful island of Dominican Republic but we kept banging up and down till the very end, and then…. Pooofff we were inside a gorgeous harbor,  the land smelling of dirt and the goats munching of the rocky outcrop. The sea was gone it was flat and we motored slowly with sam checking his sketch and his way point.

We picked a mooring ( the harbor has probably 20 or 30 boat and everyone seemed to be on some funky mooring.  Popa rushed with his fiberglass, fuel covered panga and announced  with his toothless smiles that mooring were 3 dollars a day, and if we did not mind , he would like to be paid one week in advance, because we might just leave and then…  He also had a Dominican Republic flag with him, and told us to sit tight and wait tomorrow morning to check with immigration and agriculture and Monday custom. Popa was the man, he wanted to offer his services , right now right there, hey if we wanted to see the 25 waterfalls up in the mountain, we probably go right now ! And also he had his fuel tank, and may be we also needed fuel at this very moment… It was wonderful to talk to him.

Ah it was divine !!! to be seating in the salt encrusted Acharne, no place to go, no ripple, no motion,  but the sound of the bird singing in the sunset and crickets, the smell of the land,  the dusk falling into a starry night and the neighbor Mike on “Mink” coming to say Hi and tell us all about Luperon. It was quiet and peaceful and the ocean was gone still thundering on the other side of the land. 

The next morning we went to the immigration and I have forgotten my reading glasses so the officer landed me his.  Just that little human gesture, made me breathe with the sense of the unperfect world. We have gratefully paid our mooring for a week and I am ready to explore Luperon, Yeah !!!

virginie