Dominican Republic - still bashing east

The trip from Turks and Caicos started out well but during the night we had another terrible thunder storm just off the north coast of the Dominican Republic. The cells showed up clear as day on the radar but did not travel in the same direction of the wind. I felt like they were circling us. It's more like asteroids than Galaxians. I hate lightning at sea. If you get hit, the best that will happen is a £20,000 bill for new electronics and the worst is the boat exploding and we all die. Just another thing to worry about when on watch in the middle of the night.

We arrived in Samana, Dominican Republic to a lovely uncrowded, safe anchorage with a bridge to nowhere from the 70s. Samana bay is famous for it's breeding ground for hump backed whales but we arrived at the wrong time of year :-(

We bumped into our British friends Dave and Anna on Tamerisk. We first met them in Turks and Caicos and they were the first British sailors we'd seen in 6 months. Britannia no longer rules the waves. Anna is a star as she speaks Spanish which made checking into customs, immigration, port authority and the Armada (Navy) much easier. Dave is a Yorkshire man so is by definition funny. And they have been doing this for 10 years so we have learned a lot from them. First job after checking in was Mandy's latest passion, the vegetable run. 

I have never seen so many 125 motorbikes, everyone has one, even the tuk tuks are powered by them. Three up is normal, twice I saw 4 people on a bike carrying a 30ft drainpipe. You'd get locked up in the UK for that. Such a friendly place and not expensive. As Anna was also into horses we decided to go horse riding on the other side of the penisula. Passing through the villages on workers day holiday we saw the Dominicans out enjoying themselves.

 

The horse riding was great, along the beach and through the jungle. We were not allowed to gallop but we did canter 

Our big fridge broke and Dave kindly helped re gassing it but to no avail. But we stumbled across a refrigeration guy, Emilio, who came out the boat 2 days on the run and replaced the dryer and the valves. His vacuum pump only worked at 110V so Dave, in his American boat, came alongside to power the vacuum pump. Now we have a fridge again. Thanks Dave and thanks Emilio.

We went off for 4 days to the amazing Parque Nacional Los Haitisas, 10 miles across the bay from Samana. What a place. Unlike my sister and 2 of my children I am not a twitcher but I have fallen in love with pelicans. They fly like Pterodactyls and don't half make a splash when they hit the water. There were hundreds of them. 

One nearly hit the drone.

The bioluminescence was stunning, the swim ladder looked like it was on fire, but you just cannot capture it on a camera. The sea was full of comb jellyfish, thousands of them. Completely harmless and one of the oldest creatures on earth.

I got my first coconut and put it in the fridge which makes the juice taste even better.

There where caves with ancient petroglyphs in. We arrived at 8am and had them all to ourselves before the tour boats arrived. We had to drive through the mangroves, really nice.

Then it was time to leave Dominican Republic and continue bashing east to Puerto Rico across the infamous Mona passage. You know you're doing something wrong when you don't see any other boats heading in your direction. Another hellish passage motoring into a 25 knots wind with washing machine seas and so many FADs (Fish aggregating devices). We arrived Boqueron, Puerto Rico, a holiday resort with a lovely beach and super safe anchorage and of course the amazingly friendly Puerto Rican people. Boy do they know how to karaoke. We had a great night out with our American friends, Doug and Julissa on Starfish. 

No time to stop though, hurricanes are imminent, and we need to get south pretty soon. We will definitely be coming back here next year. I love Puerto Rico. But before we can sail south we need to bash/motor east a bit more to get a good sailing line to Grenada. Can't wait to start sailing again...........