Hanging with the cruisers

We have been in Luperon since early Monday morning. What we estimated shouldn't be more than two days to get here ended up taking four. Oh well, was still fun. We left Monte Christi around midnight on Saturday and I had figured on an eight hour motor up over to Luperon. About five in the morning we hit several squalls (small localized rain storms) and the seas were building. Using both motors we were making just over 5 knots most of the way but when the wind and current started building it was a struggle to keep the boat on course and even make 3 knots of headway. I finally had to fall off to another anchorage in El Castillo about 10 miles west of Luperon. I couldn't believe that only 10 miles short we had to tap out but the current is unbelievable. It literally feels liks the boat is climbing directly uphill much like driving some old piece of shit up the Grapevine in Cali, just lugging away trying to get there. The problem is that if you can't make the entrance to Luperon by 8 in the morning you don't even attempt it. The wind picks up to much and there are shoals and reefs everywhere so it is very dangerous. El Castillo was a tranquil anchorage even with the full trade winds blowing. We were tucked in under a large reef. There are pictures of it where the locals walk about 300 yards offshore out onto the reef to fish. The beach was busy all day Sunday there and we were treated to really, really LOUD Dominican music until an hour after sunset. This was great especially since I had been up since midnight and wouldn't have minded getting a nap. All in all, I would have liked to go ashore. This is the site of the very first settlement in the New World from Columbus. The anchorage we were in was perfect for their square rigged ships to get in and out of so they thought it was a good place. They ended up moving it south to Santo Domingo later on. I planned on leaving at 3 AM to ensure that we would make Luperon by 8, even though it was 10 miles, I didn't want to chance getting hammered by the current and wind again. I got up, pulled the hook and we were off at 3 and entering the bay at first light just after 6 AM.

Luperon is great. There is a narrow entrance coming from the north to the south and about 1/4 mile then it hammerheads out to the east and west. This entire bay is still in way early stages of development. There are cruiser boats everywhere, as you can see in the pics. From talking to a lot of them, this is a great hurricane hole and one of the few remaining anchorages that haven't gone commercial. The marina here is basically about a 100' long pier. Everything else is only anchorage. The cruising community is very interesting and there are some serious characters here. For those of you who don't really know, let me define cruiser. The traditional definition of a cruiser is basically a person or a couple that sold everything they owned, quit their jobs and cut all ties to where they are from. They get a boat and everything they own is contained on board and they pretty much go where they want. Some of the people here have been in Luperon for a week, some came here last summer and some got here 8 years ago with intentions of heading east but liked it so much that they have become permanent fixtures here. The other night I came in to check out the jam session. One of the cruisers invited me into the little bar in the marina for this. Basically, anyone with an instrument comes in and they do a sort of makeshift concert. Random songs are played and sang and everyone gets piss drunk, way too cool. There were guitars, harmonicas, a banjo, a flute, etc. If you haven't heard Hotel California played on a flute you just haven't lived. The people were from South Africa, England, New Zealand, Ecuador, Russia, Colombia, France, Czech, and of course America. What is great is that no one has any boundaries or cliques here and everyone accepts you with huge open drunken arms. During the day, everyone helps each other doing projects and getting ready for the next weather window so we can jump east. The majority of these boats will be making the same rounds as we will on Rum Boogie so we will be in company with them for the next few months which I am really looking forward to. Before I went in to the party, I was trying to score a new dinghy for us. My new pal Carlos has a little panga boat and for some rum he sped me all around looking for one. I managed to find one for sale and one I was told I could borrow but it was locked and the guy with the key wouldn't be around til Tuesday. Meanwhile, Carlos had two girls with us on the boat, one from Haiti who only spoke Creole and the other a Dominican girl. He only speaks Spanish and I was able to get by ok when I explained to him that I don't pay for girls. We had a good laugh and he is a Kool Kat and gave me lots of advice on what to do and where to go around here. Since we had lost the dinghy in transit from Caicos, I had no ride into the marina for the party on Monday night so I ended up kayaking in with the wind blowing well over 20 knots. Real fun. It was amazing that when we all took off that it was flat calm and I had no problem kayaking back. I had to do some acrobatics to get on the boat without taking a late night swim but I managed it.

Yesterday was a fairly lazy day. Just still trying to recover from the weird sleeping schedule from the four day crossing. At the jam session, I was able to meet the people that were selling a dinghy. It belonged to an English couple, Pete and Sharon. They are wild. Pete was absolutely hammered on whiskey and I got a one hour congratulatory talk about how proud he was of me for walking away from my life to do this full time. We waxed intellectual for a while and talked about the dinghy. It was a good deal and I told him I would let Brian know. We raised him on the VHF and he brought the dinghy out in the morning and Brian jumped on it. We spent the afternoon trying to figure out how to get them paid. He was going to wire transfer from Bank of America to their bank online but the money wouldn't have been there until next Monday and we needed the boat. So I called the wonderful girls back home at our firefighter credit union and it was handled in half an hour. They are so bad ass, don't know what I would do without them. We lounged away the afternoon and had a good dinner up in the yacht club overlooking the bay, it is an amazing view and I will get some pics of it later today.

The plan today is to get some work done on the boat. I need to get the bilges clean and replace some lights on the mast, so hooray, I get to go back up and be the mast fairy again. We rented a car for the next two days and it will be here in the morning at 8. We are gonna drive through Santiago and down to Santo Domingo to spend the night. Then we will drive back up around the east and Brian will drop me off in Puerto Plata at the airport so I can fly back. I'm looking forward to checking out some museums in the city. Oh, and if you are wondering what happened last night, sorry to disappoint but I ended up falling asleep on the back of the boat looking up at a huge moon. Tonight, the cruisers are having a big pot luck "Full Moon Party" hosted by one of the boats, Deja Vu. There is supposed to be a big eclipse tonight so that should be amazing here. I'm assuming we will have some internet in Santo Domingo so I will try and post another blog there and add some photos. Keep reading, I'll keep writing.