at 4:15 pm. . As I lay in the cockpit floor on cushions trying to sleep I was asking Ed, "remind me again why we are doing this?" The winds were supposed to be 15knots from the E but were 20-2K from the SE which gave us a tougher sailing angle and the seas were 3-5 ft with occassional 7 footers. Ed took some sea sickness pills which really helped him. Upon arriving at 9am it rained but only briefly. The harbor is surrounded by lush green mountains and is lovely but gone is the beautiful aqua water and beautiful sand beaches of the Bahamas replaced by a harbor with mangroves.
This morning we were greeted by Pabo;a local who will bring us water and fuel out to the boat
and sold us a Dominican Republic Flag. He seemed very helpful.
We checked in today and I was happy to have a working knowledge of Spanish as I really needed it.
It certainly is different here, seems to be a very poor country. There was a line of goats(cabras) going
down the street today and lots of people riding horses. This will be a very different experience.
We are waiting for our friends to come but the weather windows are not right for coming this way
so we are making new friends. We had lunch at a very nice restaurant with a pool, laundry facilities
and internet but we didn't know about all those things until we arrived there. I have seen no nice
resorts here. We will keep you posted and are going to try tomorrow to post some pictures to our
blogsite. We are getting 38 pesos for every dollar.
March 1st: We went to Santiago today by gwagwa (a taxi crammed with people) and motorbus. Santiago is a big city of almost two million people. We found it difficult to get around due to language issues but eventually someone would understand and point us in the right direction. We toured a large monument to the revolution, went to a large grocery store, the bank and enjoyed lunch before the 2 hour trip back to Luperon.
Food is inexpensive due to the large agricultural basis of the country, rich soil and rain-trapping mountains. We typically eat, drink and have dessert for about $20 for two! It is about double that in the Bahamas and Turks&Caicos.
We plan to stay here for another week or until the trade-winds go lighter allowing us to travel eastward in the night calm as the cool air rolls off the mountains. We plan to go on a waterfall tour next week where we will slide down 27 chutes into the water wearing helmets and life jackets. Pictures are coming soon, we have good internet access.
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