Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, Wednesday February 21. 2007
The infamous documents from Denmark did arrive on that Monday, and we went south on the Indian River also known as The Intercoastal Waterway. It took us 3 days to reach Palm Beach and the Lake Worth Inlet to the Atlantic Ocean.
The pump for the fridge broke down so I had to buy a generator that makes 110 volt in Palm Beach. We call it the beast because it’s not very silent. It works really good though and the food and beers are cold.After a couple of days in Palm Beach we went on our maiden voyage across to Bahamas. Everything went really good, we didn’t have any major things that broke down on the 48 hours trip to the Flemming Channel.
We had to motor most of the way, the wind was either blowing from the wrong direction or not at all. When you sail you shouldn’t have a time schedule but we were running out of time and couldn’t wait for right weather.
The Flemming Channel was in sight in the morning and for the next 5 hours we cruised on the most beautiful turquoise water, all we had to watch out for was coralheads and the depth sounder.
Around 4 o’clock we decided to anchor in between two islands. The map wasn’t the best in the world but it was all we had. On the spot we had chosen, the waves we too big so we turned and wanted to sail over to some other sailboats. I was on the way to the bow when a terrible sound went through the ship, we had hit the ground.
The story is long, I swam out with an anchor but the tide was running low and we got more stuck. The next 5 hours we waited for high tide. In the tsunami the water was an enemy but now it was our new best friend and he was late.
I have been doing more fun things in my life and every time the rumbling sound went through the boat, we hoped that the hull would stand it.
The water came back and we fought with the anchorline around the wench for an hour. The relief I can not describe when we got loose at 1 am in the night. Unbelievable that the anchor I put out held up and we got out. Later inspection of the hull showed that only a small piece from the keel was missing and it was scratched up good but that was all, Solitude is very strong build ship.
After anchoring and relaxing for a day, we sailed further south on the Exuma Sound where the water was deep, but hit a thunderstorm that lasted for 30 minutes with lightning bolt hitting less than 300 meters from us. When it cleared up the light was straight out of a sepia photo and the thunderstorm was on the horizon all night with lightning bolts all the time.
Another couple of days sailing and we anchored in AbrahamBay by MayaguanaIsland. I did a 88 minutes solodive in 5 meters of water. After 2 months and 3 days without diving it was so nice to back in the underwater world. The life around these sets of corals reminded a lot of the fish life in Curacao. I found a spotted moray eel, two scorpionfish and loads of flamingo tongues plus other fish.
Two days of anchoring and we went on the last leg towards The Dominican Republic. First couple of hours the wind was good and I put out the fishing pole for the first time. After about 4 hours something bit, Goos slowed down Solitude and I started slowly to the reel in the line. Whatever was at the end of the line fought really good but 10 minutes later we had a 50 cm barracuda on the deck and I was laughing out loud. I cleaned the fish the best I could and got two big steaks out of it. What a feeling to catch and cook you own food.
The wind picked up and so did the waves. We had to take the sail in a little bit more and ended up with something that was no bigger than a handkerchief and we were still going around 6 knots. Luckily the wind and waves were in our direction for the first time since Palm Beach and we got to The Dominican Republic very tired 12 noon on the 19. of February.
Immigration and customs were cleared fairly easy and we are going to stay here for 4 days before the next and maybe the roughest trip east to Puerto Rico.
Life is good onboard Solitude even though things break down all the time. It’s not big things but a lamp here and there, the instruments wouldn’t work for a while and the weatherfax was spitting out paper that was way to dark to read.
Like my good friend Ben Fox said about having a daughter, there are some good times and some hard times but all in all its nice. It is exactly the same having a sailboat….
Ponce, Puerto Rico, Monday Mar. 5. 2007
The Dominican Republic was once more a very nice place. The locals always smile, I don’t know if it’s because I look funny or they are just being nice… perhaps the first….
The harbour we were in, turned out to be somewhat of a disaster. The swell coming in from the ocean got Solitude to roll from side to side. That was not the worst, the fishing boat next to us was banging the hell out of us and the fenders I had, were kind of small for a boat this size. Fresh water and electricity we got from the fishing boat, but only a few hours a day which was good, because every time the captain of the fishing boat fired the generator, a carpet of dust and dirt from the exhaust pipe laid on the deck of Solitude.
So I never forget Puerto Plata, I still got rust stains on the deck… Puerto Plata it self is a really nice little original town. Not many tourists come or stay here for some reason I do not know. Maybe because the town has no good beach or maybe everything that a tourist seeks are moved to nearby Sousa and Caberete.
We did meet some really interesting people while we were there. Here is a small list:
Local drunk guy, mid 30’s:
In the search of a internet café I bumped into a local or he kinda attached himself to me, asking what I was looking for or that was what I made out of the Spanish I understand.He dragged me to one place with some computers Christofer Columbus had left when he first got here, but the connection with my laptop didn’t work. The local buy, who kept calling me amigo and giving me his hand sat on a barstool while I was trying to get on the world wide web. When it did not work, he took me to another place, talking Spanish the all way there. As you do, I just smiled, laughed and said no the right places. Finally we got to an internet café that would connect with my laptop and I started to upload photos and text to my website.
The guy sat right next to me watching everything I did on the laptop, with his mouth wide open. An hour and a half later he was still sitting there… I packed everything down when I was done, paid the internet guy and went back toward Solitude with my new best amigo right next to me. When we got to the plaza where he found me or I found him, I gave him 100 peso (3 dollars) for his help. He started to look sad and saying something in Spanish that indicated he was poor, hungry and thirsty. I gave him 50 peso extra, if it wasn’t for him I hadn’t found the internet café but when he started to put up the poorface again, I said no! and went down to my sailboat.
A couple of days after he meet me again and followed me down the internet café, sat and stared at me for 2 hours without saying anything. Back at the plaza he wanted more money but I laughed with him and said no. First after 5 days, a lot of saying “amigo” and watching me on the internet, he realized he was getting no more money and our friendship ended.
Henk, dutch guy, 79 years of age:
I meet this old happy guy in the local and nearest bar to the harbour we were located at. He was and still is full of stories. Living in Puerto Plata for 12 years and still riding his bicycle around town. He was in the 2. World War, had been to some concentration camp but got out. When he got back to Holland he ended up in northern Holland still hiding from the germans. The northern people of Holland found him one day hiding in the bushes and asked where he was from, with his Amsterdam accent he answered Holland, but the northern people didn’t believe him and thought he was from Germany. He was chased away with hay forks. While he was telling this story he was laughing.
For 30 years he was living in Canada and had two sons but they didn’t wanna see him. Henk lifted his shoulders for a while, he couldn’t do much about it and didn’t want to cry about it. That was what type of person he was and still is. Live life simple and do what you wanna do. One time he was in Thailand and got to a bar with lots of women. They looked a bit rough and Henk had had a few beers. He got one home and realized it was a transvestite when he took his hand in the panties…. “It was dark, hard to tell and I was pretty drunk!” Henk was laughing hard….
Colin, English guy, early 70’s:
Colin had crashed a car, a sailboat, and an airplane. Nowadays he was just travelling by his own small aircraft. One time he was flying over Cuba when two MIG firefighters were right next to him. He had flown into Cuban airspace without realizing it. He laughed and laughed about that.
Another time he was flying and had to open the window because it was getting too hot. The only map he had with him was sitting on his lap but the wind took it and it flew out the window. Once he had a sailboat but it sank, I don’t know why.
Bryan, English man and cook on ships:
I bumped into him at Yellow Beard Pub in Puerto Plata. He was very drunk and I didn’t understand everything he was saying. Folks from Newcastle are not easy to understand and when they are loaded with beer and booze, it’s not getting easier. The one story he was telling about a prostitute I heard about 10 times, but I can’t really remember much of it. I wasn’t drinking orangejuice either….
John, English soldier and owner of Yellow Beard Pub:
He was super helpful and had loads of friends in The Dominican Republic. He has been a soldier for many years serving in SAS, the British Special Forces. About 7 years ago his wife and 4 kids was killed in a car accident. The little family loved the Dominican Republic so he went there and lived 6 months in a cottage in the hills and lived of off the land. His 3 brothers went to get him down and now he is remarried with a Haitian girl, got a kid and is the owner of the pub.
John gave me a bottle of “something I do not know what is” but thinking it’s snaps. He said if the shit hits the fan take a drink of this…
He also gave me a drawing of a bird that chokes on a frog because the frog is choking the bird. The text says “Don’t ever give up!!” It gives a powerful meaning to it when it comes from a guy like John. I put it up on the wall right next to the navigation table on my boat.
There is an end to all good things and after 8 days we had to depart and head for Puerto Rico. We were also pretty sick and tired of the harbour and all the dirt. For a few days we had tried to pay the harbour but for reasons unknown, they couldn’t make a receipt for us. Each time we wanted to pay it took around an hour of getting nowhere. At the end they would come to the boat with a receipt and then we could pay.
Nobody showed up on Monday and we had to leave Tuesday. Tuesday morning the office was closed, it was Independence Day. A piece of information they didn’t give us. We took off the lines on Solitude and left the Dominican Republic without clearing out or paying, we had enough and if it was so hard to produce a piece of paper that indicated we had paid for our stay in the harbour, then it was not meant to be paid for anyway.
We both love The Dominican Republic and can’t wait to come back if they let us in….
The trip to Puerto Rico was really rough for the first 5 hours or so and then we got lucky for the next 40 hours. It was against the waves and wind but it was ok. The notorious Mona Passage was only tough in the very beginning then the moon came out and the water was really quiet. When we rounded the southwest corner of Puerto Rico, the waves became bigger and Solitude was pounding into them. I had a cold which didn’t contribute much to the good experience.
We stopped in Guanica a very small town with a big bay and anchored. They don’t have any immigration office here so we have to wait to we get 20 miles east to Ponce, Puerto Rico’s second largest city after the capitol San Juan.
The dinghy was put out with the outboard motor for the first time and that is a really speed devil. It is really fun to sail around in.
Last night we meet a guy called Eddie. He was living in New York and worked as a truck driver in the states but was on vacation now. We had a beer with him in a small simple bar with a karaoke machine that he sort of controlled. After a little bit with Eddie, we went to get some food in another restaurant. The food was good but the TV was bothering me to much so I went back to Eddie and the simple bar. Eddie and I talked for a while and the conversation turned towards music. He had around 200 CD, most of them were karaoke and I asked him if he had any mariachi music. He started to fiddle CD’s and found one, popped it in the karaoke player and began to sing. I was left with a new beer in my hand in the bar, Eddie was unstoppable, he just kept on going. Goos came back from the other restaurant and we drank another beer while Eddie was raging. The sound from Eddie and the machine dragged us back to the restaurant for yet another beer.
Around 11 we got tired and took the dinghy back to Solitude where we could hear Eddie still trying to sing into the microphone.
We spent a few days in the bay by Guanica and continued our journey to Ponce where we arrived last night. On the way here we did the best sailing so far and once again I caught a barracuda that we had for dinner.
This morning we were waken up by US Customs that wanted to know why we did contact them the night before when we arrived. The officers were pretty nice and didn’t give us a fine of 5000 dollars, we just had to pick up our passports at the immigrations office later.
The idea is to stay here a few days and then head further east towards St. Croix first and later St. Marteen.
