Mar 1

We got off to a lazy start today.  I spent a good part of yesterday getting caught up on my logs, so I wanted to get the website updated today.  I have a fair wireless connection on the boat, but the upload was taking a very long time.  After a couple hours of slow progress, we decided to go in to Steve's Place to do the upload instead.  Steve offers free internet when you have a meal.  So, we packed up the computer, loaded up a bag of laundry, and headed to Steve's.

There was only one other couple at Steve's and he was on the internet, so I hoped we would have a good connection.  At Steve's, the connection is not wireless.  You actually plug in a LAN cable, which fortunately he provides.  I got connected and started the website update.  I use FrontPage to build the website, and it is good about continuing an upload that has been interrupted, so it picked up where it had left off.  The bad news was that it wasn't a lot faster than the wireless connection had been.  But it was more consistent, so I could let it go and sit at the table and have lunch while it worked.  Steve's deal on laundry is 110 pesos per fifteen pounds of laundry.  They will wash, dry, and fold within twenty-four hours, or you can do it yourself.  Same price either way.  Let's think about that one for about a second.  So, Barb arranged for Annie, Steve's wife, to do the laundry.  We enjoyed lunch and several other cruisers came and went during the couple hours we spent there.  Finally, the website upload finished, and I got a mail off to everyone.

We headed back to the boat mid-afternoon with a plan of being lazy and reading, etc.  As I tried to read, my eyes kept closing, so I decided to give up and just take a nap.  Just as I was falling asleep, a voice came over the VHF saying that somebody was dragging in the harbor.  Initially, they didn't give any indication of where in the harbor, but Barb quickly spotted two boats real close together up ahead of us.  It's always the right thing to do to go help if you can in a situation like this.  It's even more so the right thing to do if the boat dragging is ahead of you in the anchorage.  Because the boat they hit may be yours.  So, I was off in the dinghy with three or four other guys to corral the loose boat.  The owners got there about the same time as everybody else and got aboard and got the motor running and backed away from the boat they were about to hit.  But, their anchor was still down, and they couldn't get far away.  While one guy drove, another tried to hoist their rope anchor rode.  (Cruising boats should have all chain although maybe this was an example of when rope worked out better.)  After being unable to extract themselves, instead of getting the anchor up, one guy got in their dinghy and came around to the bow of the boat.  They then let the boat end of the line loose so the boat could back away, leaving the anchor on the bottom.  Once the boat was safely clear, the guy tried to haul the anchor up by hand.  It appeared to be caught on the chain on the boat they almost hit though.  After much tugging, they finally got it free.  The danger in all this was the possibility of pulling up the anchor of the second boat, setting it adrift.  Those people were not aboard and did not respond to numerous calls on the VHF.  When all was said and done, the second boat seemed to still be secure, and the original boat moved way on the other side of the harbor to re-anchor.  I returned to the boat, fully awake now, and enjoyed a quiet evening as the wind subsided.

Speaking of the wind, the usual routine here is that it is dead calm first thing in the morning.  Around mid-morning, the wind starts to pick up out of the east.  Through the afternoon, the wind continues to build to anywhere between fifteen and twenty-five knots.  Somewhere around dark, it starts to noticeably abate, and by 20:00 or 21:00 it has pretty much died.  This whole routine is what getting from here to the Virgin Islands comfortably is based on.  Of course, occasionally, you have a cold front move through which disrupts the normal pattern.  When that happens, you may have a couple of days where the prevailing easterlies don't happen, and you can make a couple day jump in one trip instead of multiple night trips.  We'll see how this all works for us when the time comes.

We did find a website that has a lot of good info about Luperon.  It is www.luperoncruising.com.  There are links there to Steve's, and Marina Blanco.

GPS N 19-53.936 W 070-57.120  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 8489.

Mar 2

Today we are taking a tour to Puerto Plata.  Puerto Plata is the next city east of Luperon, still on the northern coast of the DR.  Harriet from Perseverance has arranged for a guagua (mini-van) for us to take us round-trip.  The cost quoted for this was $20/person, based on eight of us which we figure is reasonable.  One couple then decided to go via the public guaguas to figure out how they worked, which left only six of us.  So when we met the driver, we renegotiated a price of $25/person, so his total for the day was about the same.  We were happy with this.  (More on this in tomorrow's log.)  We met the driver at 07:00 (or so) and were underway, with the plan being to beat rush hour traffic in Puerto Plata.

To get to Puerto Plata, you take the same road we took a few days ago to Imbert.  This is two lanes and goes through a couple of small villages.  The difference in our trip today was that our driver wasn't suicidal.  We drove at a nice pace and everybody else passed us instead of us being the ones constantly in the wrong lane.  Just before getting to Imbert, there is a fork in the road where we took the side that we had not done before.  This allowed us to skip Imbert and be on a nicer, but still two lane, highway to Puerto Plata.  In about fifty minutes, we were in the outskirts of Puerto Plata.  Somebody had told us that they were rebuilding the road into Puerto Plata, making it four lanes with sidewalks and everything.  This turned out to be true, and it will probably be a ten year project at the rate they seem to be going.  Once we were in Puerto Plata where the construction was, the road alternated between new concrete and dirt, with a deep trench every couple hundred of feet, four lanes to two lanes, and a divider in the middle or not, and absolutely no traffic control devices on the cross streets.  Add to that the fact that now we were in rush hour traffic, so there were trucks and vans and thousands of little smoking motorcycles.  The majority of the motorcycles here are Japanese or Chinese bikes with two-cycle 100cc to 150cc  motors.  With a two-cycle motor, you add oil to the gas, which makes noticeable smoke.  It is common practice here to use used motor oil for the oil, instead of new two-stroke oil.  And I suspect the mixing ratios may not be strictly adhered to.  The result is a lot of smoky, loud little bikes running around.

The only real challenge of the trip was that our driver does not speak any English.  Fortunately, Harriet, who arranged the trip, speaks enough that we get where we want to go.  We thought one of the challenges was that we had to arrange where to meet the driver in the afternoon.  It wasn't until we were in Puerto Plata, that we realized he was staying there with us all day.  So, once we were there, we had him drive to the maleceon, which is the waterfront.  As we drove along we spotted a restaurant open for breakfast and told the driver to stop.  He parked and let us out, and then we realized he really meant he would spend the day with us.  He had a second guy with him, who stayed with the van, while he accompanied us.  Since our first stop was breakfast, we invited him to join us.  We all had breakfast and then walked on into old town Puerto Plata.

One of the things Puerto Plata is known for is amber.  There are many stores selling amber.  It turns out that several stores also bill themselves as "the amber museum".  The "official" amber museum has a logo styled after the Jurassic Park logo, because Jurassic Park was filmed here in the DR.  Unfortunately, the amber museum that our official tourist association guide guided us to was just a store with a little display to see before you hit the gift shop.  It was interesting, and we learned about regular amber and blue amber a.k.a. larimar.  The store was also trying to sell us mamajuana, a drink with a secret recipe that is reputed to cure just about anything.  If they had marketed this stuff earlier, there would have been no need for Viagra.

After the amber museum, we all sought out the real reason we had to come to Puerto Plata today.  Cash.  A couple of blocks up from the amber store, we found the town square.  On one side of the square was a bank.  This was the same bank we had found in Imbert, but here the ATM actually worked and without intervention from an employee.  Several of us got 10,000 pesos (about $300) each.  As we were doing this, we noticed a couple of local policemen outside randomly stopping cars and checking their licenses and registrations.  Can you imagine the uproar about rights and privacy that would bring in the US?

As on the way into town, we were overwhelmed by the noise and smoke of the traffic.  We discussed what to do next, and decided to head for the teleferico, which is a cable car to the top of a 2500 foot mountain.  Now for those of you who think 2500 feet is nothing, remember, we have spent the last several years at sea level.  We communicated to our driver that we wanted to go to the cable car and he led us back to the van.  We headed off through town and in an effort to bypass some traffic, we went right buy the port, where a container ship was being unloaded.  This would not have been a big event except for the dichotomy we saw here.  There were dozens of large trucks here waiting to load or unload their cargo.  In line with the large trucks was a horse pulling a two-wheeled cart picking up his cargo.  We have seen many of these carts in the last week, but seeing one in line with the trucks was especially funny to me given that I have been the truck driver before.

Once through town we arrived at Mount Isabel.  At the top of this mountain is a statue of Christ, and a botanical garden.  But first we have to get to the top.  In the parking lot, we are met by a guide.  As with everything here, it's not clear if we need a guide, nor what the cost is.  Since he is dressed like lots of other guys, and has a badge, we let our guide take us to the ticket counter and handle the actual transaction to buy our 200 peso round-trip tickets for the cable car (that's $6).  We waited about thirty minutes for our car up the mountain.  While we waited we were entertained by a four-man band.  I had a few pesos in my hand to tip the band when the line moved past them, but when it finally happened, we moved past so fast that I forgot to drop the money.  Once we moved, we were in the loading zone, and still had ten minutes to wait for the car to come.  While we waited, a guy who was great with card and coin trick entertained us.  When he asked for tips at the end of his performance, I grabbed the 10 peso bill that I had ready for the band and dropped it in his hat.  10 pesos is about $.33, so he looked at it and was less than pleased.  Fortunately for me, the cable car was arriving in the station, so I moved away from him.  I'm not sure if anybody else tipped him at all.

We rode the car up and were treated to a fantastic view.  Our guide, Leonardo, kept telling us how lucky we were because the top of the mountain was not in the clouds.  We were to learn a couple of days later that this was very true.  We got to the top and began our walk.  We first went to the base of the statue.  Leonardo was very versed in getting us each to pose on a rock where he could take a picture of us with the statue in the background.  He then took us on a long walk through the botanical gardens.  We know it was long because folks who were several cable cars behind us in line for the trip up, ended up in front of us on the way down.  We saw many plants and trees that Leonardo stopped and explained to us.  As in other parts of the DR, I am amazed at things we see growing wild that we had as house plants in the US.  Spider plants, coleus, croatants, poinsettias, and many more were everywhere growing naturally.  In addition to the statue, the mountain is home to many TV, radio, and cell towers for Puerto Plata.  Leonardo pointed out a two-story concrete building at the base of one of the towers.  He explained that a man lived in the second story, and had for ten years.  He is the guy who maintains the towers.  As we passed one of the towers, Leonardo pointed out large birds on top of the tower and said they were eagles.  We looked and quickly realized they were some kind of vulture, not eagles.  Once back near the cable car station, we stopped to grab a cervaza before heading back down.  Along the way we had discretely discussed how much to tip our guide.  We had decided that between 300 and 500 pesos ($9 to $15) would be appropriate.  Before we got to the downloading point for the cable car, we stopped and Leonardo said this is where we paid him.  We asked how much, as he said $5.  We paid up and thought we got a deal.

At the bottom, our driver was waiting for us, and we tried to tell him where to go next.  We were getting hungry, and wanted to hit a supermercado (good grocery store) so we told him that.  He suggested a supermercado that had a food court.  We said fine and headed there.  Unfortunately, the food was closed between lunch and dinner when we got there.  So we browsed the store and picked up a few things.  We then told the driver to take us to a local place for food.  We went back into the heart of the city to a "locals" restaurant.  Between Harriet and our driver, we all got beer and chicken with rice and beans.  The whole bill for eight of us was 900 pesos, about ($27).  The only downside to going to this local place was that we were exposed to local kids begging for money.  We were sitting on a porch on the street, so as these little kids came by they saw the gringos having lunch.  As our driver saw them, he shooed them away, but it was a quick reminder that all is not well in under-developed countries.

After our mid-afternoon lunch, we headed back to Luperon about 15:30.  The return trip didn't seem as long as the outbound one, but isn't that how it always seems?  We had the driver drop us off right at Steve's Place.  We converted our $25 quote to pesos and rounded up to 1000 pesos for each couple.  Even though we had bought breakfast and lunch for the driver, we felt this was a good deal.  We stopped at Steve's got a beer and our laundry.  The laundry turned out to be between thirty and forty-five pounds, so the cost was 330 pesos ($10) for three loads.  I'm liking this more than the Bahamas.

Once the laundry was collected, we headed back to the boat just before dark.  Our anchor light is still not working, so finding the boat before total darkness is good.

GPS N 19-53.936 W 070-57.120  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 8489.

Mar 3

Today we are taking a tour with Janet from Satori.  Janet is an American cruiser who is an archeologist.  Since she is not a Dominican, she cannot legally lead tours.  However, since the tour she does is not done by anybody else, the officials seem to look the other way.  Jose, who is the official tour guide based at Marina Blanco is good friends with Janet and everybody seems to get along.  Before we left on our tour, Jose was questioning how much we paid our driver yesterday.  We told him, and he said we paid too much.  There apparently is a set price they are supposed to charge, only we didn't know that.  While we felt we got a good deal and were not complaining, this seemed to be a big issue to Jose and he said he was going to check into it.  It's hard to not feel like we are taking advantage of some of these people because things are so cheap.

The tour today had about fifteen people on it.  We are going to three major places.  One is a cave where there are lots of Taino Indian relics.  The cave is privately owned by a Belgian couple who moved here ten or more years ago.  They developed a great interest in the story of the native Taino Indians who were here before Christopher Columbus found this island.  The Tainos were really Arawak Indians, but when Columbus landed and asked who they were, they replied Taino, which meant "good people".  So they became known as Tainos.  The Belgian couple found locals in possession of artifacts, but not preserving them.  After befriending some locals, they found out where the artifacts were being found, and then bought the property.  Over the years, they have built steps for accessibility and done quite a bit of excavation in conjunction with a couple of American universities.  They have made the local people more aware of protecting these artifacts when they find them elsewhere.  Much of what they have found has been donated to the National Museum system.  Unfortunately, if you follow the link to the museum's website, most of what you read is crap.  They display very little of the Taino artifacts, and there is no money available to fund the upkeep and preservation of the museums.  The owners of this cave also own the small resort we are going to later, and have an incredible private display there.  The view from the caves is astounding.  To the north there is an enclave of private homes on the shore, and plans for a large resort.  The flatlands between the caves and the shore were once tobacco fields, and now are growing corn and sugar cane.

From the caves we moved on to La Isabella.  La Isabella is where Columbus first landed in the New World in 1492.  One of his three boats, the Santa Maria, ran aground and was destroyed.  They salvaged everything they could including the wood from the ship and built a settlement where thirty-nine men were left.  Columbus went back to Europe to report his find, and when he returned in a year, he found the men dead and the settlement burned because the men had pissed off the local Indians.  Regardless, they built a new settlement and stayed quite a while.  There is much more about this history at this link.  The country has made this site a National Park, but again, it is sadly deteriorating due to lack of funds and/or desire to maintain it.  Janet led us through the park, since there are no park tour guides, just one guy to take the admission fee.  Unfortunately, back in the 1960's what was left of any original buildings was bulldozed.  Since the park has been established, archeologists have mapped out where buildings were and marked there locations with stone outlines.  There is a graveyard where the Spaniards were buried over the years, and the one piece of original structure that has survived is remnants of the foundation of Columbus' house.  To the west from here, you can see the mountains of Haiti.

Just outside the park, we visited a Catholic church.  This church is not very old.  It was built in 1991 in anticipation of a papal visit.  It was built to look like an old traditional Spanish church.  Many countries sent gifts to furnish the church, and the road from Imbert got paved just for the Pope's visit.  Unfortunately, the Pope was ill when he got to the DR, and never made the trip to La Isabella.  The church has beautiful gardens and while very simple is quite pretty.  As was the case at the botanical gardens in Puerto Plata, it is funny to see plants growing wild that we would consider house plants in the States.

From here we went to Miramar, the small resort owned by the Belgian couple.  They own a large amount of land from the top of a high hill to the ocean.  The view was spectacular from the grounds.  They have built the whole place and a number of other surrounding homes themselves.  They have ten rooms to rent, the restaurant and bar, a large pool, and did I mention the view?  Janet's tours conclude here and include a few hours of eating, drinking, and swimming.  The meal is included in the tour price and was fabulous.  We sat at two large tables and were served family style.  First came a bouillabaisse that had fish, shrimp, calamari, and mussels in it.  Then came a salad, then the real food.  There were green beans, carrots, beets, potatoes, broccoli, and more vegetables.  Then there was roast pork and rare roast beef.  And there were some type of lightly fried potato balls, who's name I've forgotten.  Nobody left the tables hungry as there was way too much food for us to finish.  We spent the next hour or so relaxing, drinking, swimming, and touring the private collection of Taino artifacts that they have on display here.  Off the restaurant is a room with several large display cases full of hundreds of artifacts.  There are more complete undamaged pieces than you can count, and hundreds and hundreds of broken pieces.  It was incredible to see all this in one place, and again we were reminded of the shame of the official museums for not taking this much interest in preserving this history.

A little before sunset we loaded up the vans to head back.  Janet took our van on a little detour down to the beach nearby.  After a brief stop, we headed towards Luperon.  There is supposed to be a lunar eclipse tonight, right after sunset.  As we were heading southeast towards Luperon, the sun had set and Barb spotted the red spot of the fully eclipsed moon.  We stopped and got out of the van to watch for several minutes.  Once we were stopped, we also noticed that we were surrounded by fireflies.  I had no idea they had fireflies here.  We got back to Marina Blanco and went straight to the boat.  Once there we watched the moon as it reappeared from the eclipse.  Since it is a full moon, it was really cool.

GPS N 19-53.936 W 070-57.120  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 8489.

Mar 4

Sunday morning started with the twice-a-week VHF radio net.  The weekly swap meet will be at 10:00 at Marina Blanco.  Last week we got there at 10:00 and were too late to get a sticky bun, so today we are going early.  We were there by 09:30, and got two sticky buns before they were all gone.  Our whole gang eventually showed up and we visited and relaxed until about noon.  The regular barbeque was going on at noon, but we decided to go into town for lunch instead.  We went to a place at the main intersection where we had not been before, but some of the others had.  The name is Los Almendros, which means something like The Almond Tree, which they have growing through the building.  Their lunch special was chicken, rice and beans, for 80 pesos.  That's just over $2.  And have mentioned the beer is cheap too?  We spent over an hour here with Sol Y Mar and Lone Star, and were also joined by another couple and Jose the tour guide after we had eaten.

We had a preliminary plan to go back to our boats for naps and then meet at Marina Blanco to listen to the Sunday band again, but none of ever did leave the boats in the evening.  We just relaxed and enjoyed the evening.  Several boats are leaving this evening.  From here until we get to the Virgin Islands, we will frequently travel at night when the winds that we will be facing die down.  That's why these boats are leaving after dark.  We bid them goodbye and safe travels as they left.

GPS N 19-53.936 W 070-57.120  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 8489.

Mar 5

Well I thought today was going to be a one line log update saying that we didn't do anything.  But then we did things.  But don't worry - it wasn't much.  My big boat project of the day was to diagnose why my rechargeable flashlight quit a few weeks ago.  I got my high-tech test meter out and quickly determined it was the bulb.  I knew I had an unidentified spare bulb in with all of our batteries, so I got it out.  It was exactly the same shape and size, so I thought I was in.  I screwed the top back on and turned it on and got one quick flash out of the new bulb.  After getting my glasses and a magnifying glass out, I was able to read that the bulb I needed was 9.6 volts and the spare I had was 4 volts.  Oops.  Well, I didn't know what the spare was for anyway, so I guess nothing is lost.  But the flashlight still doesn't work.  We have several others, but the fact that this one is rechargeable is good.

We ate lunch aboard and then I went over to Lone Star to share some pictures with them.  They had forgotten their camera the day we went to La Isabella, so I downloaded my pictures to their computer.  After that visit, I went over to Sol Y Mar to see why the CD of pictures I had given them from Carnivale wouldn't download.  It seemed the CD format is incompatible with anything except what is on my computer which made the CD, so I'll have to work on that.  Meanwhile we decided to visit, so I went and got Barb and came back to Sol Y Mar where we had a beer and watched Dori make no-see-um screens for their hatches.  We need them too.  While we were there, Handy Andy delivered water to Sol Y Mar.  Handy Andy and Pabo are the two boat boy guys that run around the harbor.  They will bring water, gasoline, propane, diesel, beer, ice, or whatever else you need to your boat.  Since there is no fuel dock to pull up to, they are your only choice.  And, they work together, so it's not a competition thing. 

I decided that today would be the first time we try out Handy Andy's services.  While he was at Sol Y Mar, I told him I needed sixty gallons of water and three gallons of gasoline.  The deal with water here is that the free water you can get yourself at Marina Blanco is not potable for us gringos.  But, they have five gallons bottles of R/O water available.  Delivered to the boat and poured in your tanks the charge is $.30/gallon.  We've paid more.  About an hour after I asked for it, Andy and another guy came to the boat with twelve bottles of water and started pouring.  As they were pouring my water, a boat was entering the harbor, and from where we were Andy could tell they were off course.  He hailed them on the radio and told them to move over, since he will be the one who has to go pull them off the sandbar if they run aground. It was too late, as they were already aground, but a second sailboat pulled them off.  There is a local here who is collecting donated parts to add another buoy out there, but it isn't done yet.  When Andy was done with our water, I gave them the gas tank from the dinghy, which was almost empty, and they took it to refill.  A little before dark, Andy returned our gas tank.  The charge was about $4.25/gal.  Not bad delivered.

We decided to go to town for dinner, and Tom & Pat, Pat & Dori, and Richard & Harriet all joined us.  We went to Los Almendros, because they had advertised a grouper special on the VHF.  We got seated upstairs and placed out orders.  The neat thing about places like this is that they will pretty much make whatever you want if they have the stuff.  Tonight they are offering shrimp or grouper as well as their regular menu.  Pat ordered shrimp and when he asked how they cooked it, they asked how do you want it?  He described how he wanted it cooked in garlic and butter and maybe if they could make a cream sauce that would be nice.  Later they came back and said they had no shrimp after all.  Oops.  Since Pat & Dori had a late lunch and originally just planned to join us for drinks, they didn't order anything else.  They still got a salad with the rest of us on the house.  After awhile, the food for the rest of us started coming out.  Everybody got theirs except me.  I gave the waitress a little shrug to indicate "where's mine" and she got a look on her face and indicated it was coming.  She came a minute later and explained there was a mix-up and it would be out in just a minute.  No problem.  After a few more minutes, she came back and said they were out of broccoli, which I had ordered so I would get extra fish and my mashed potatoes.  OK.  Soon, I had an excellent double order of grouper sautéed in garlic and butter and mashed potatoes.  After we were all done, the owner, Andre, stopped by to make sure everything was OK.  We assured him it was and then next thing you know we all had a slice of light cake jelly roll thing with chocolate drizzled on top.  After that, magically a shot of Sambuca, with the proper three coffee beans each showed up.  The dessert and Sambuca was on the house.  Andre came by again to chat with us and share a bit of Sambuca.  He is French Canadian and he was telling us that he wondered why a French Canadian cruiser would ever think buying a restaurant in Luperon was a good idea.  We had a fun chat with him before we headed back to the boats.

GPS N 19-53.936 W 070-57.120  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 8489.

Mar 6

We planned to do another trip with Janet the illegal tour guide today, but she called us on the VHF early to tell us she couldn't do today since she had to go to Puerto Plata by cab to get her van's registration straightened out.  So, we have to find something productive to do aboard the boat.  I decided to check out the anchor light problem.  To go to the top of the mast safely, I need two halyards.  One to hoist the mast steps and one to hold the bosun's chair around me for extra safety.  That means taking down the foresail to use it's halyard and our regular spare.  To take down the foresail, we need zero wind.  So, about 08:30, we unfurled the jib and dropped it to the deck.  The first thing we did was to secure it along the lifelines with bungee cords.  It will probably have to stay there all day, and I don't want the wind catching it.  The wind picked up right after we lowered the sail, much earlier than usual.  I then ran the mast steps up the mast with one halyard.  Once they were in place, I got all the tools I thought I would possibly need together and loaded them in the canvas bag that I take to the top.  Then I got the bosun's chair on and started climbing.  The climb really isn't as bad as I always dread.  The height doesn't bother me at all.  The issue is climbing hand over hand sixty feet.  But, I can still do it and Barb kept the second halyard attached to the bosun's chair tight just in case I slipped.

I got to the top and tested the voltage to the light.  It seemed ok, meaning the light was bad.  So, I took the masthead plate which holds the light off and had Barb lower me to the deck.  (I don't climb down.  I just let Barb lower me in the Bosun's chair.)  I took the LED light off the masthead plate and replaced it with the old light which uses ten times the electricity.  After a little break up the mast I went for the second time.  I got the wires connected and put the masthead plate back on and yelled to Barb to turn the light on.  There was no light.  I had her double check that the right switch was on, even though I knew it would be.  Then I lowered my tool bag so she could send my voltmeter back up.  I check the voltage at the wires and now I only had half a volt instead of twelve.  Not good.  I wiggled wires and could not get the normal twelve volts at the wires.  It seems I must have a wiring problem inside the mast, which is more than I can fix here.  Down the mast I went.  After resting a bit, I took the LED light and connected it to a twelve volt source and it seemed to work ok.  So, my apologies to Stecktronics and my thanks to them for their technical advice that it turns out wasn't necessary.  I'll rig a temporary anchor light in the cockpit using the fixture I took off until we are in Grenada and I can perhaps replace the cable in the mast.

By the time I finished this, it was 11:00.  I called Sol Y Mar to see what they were up to.  Pat was changing the belts on his engine and was a frustrated as I was.  We decided to head into town to Steve's place for lunch.  Richard & Harriet from Perseverance joined us also.  We had a good lunch and several cervezas.  We met a young couple from Norway who were on the boat that came in yesterday and pulled the other one off the sandbar.  They left Norway nine months ago, sailed across the Atlantic to the southern Caribbean, and are working their way north through the US to Canada, Iceland, and back to Norway over the next year.  And, they don't have a SSB, don't know who Chris Parker is, and are on a thirty-foot sailboat.  It makes us realize how easy cruising can be these days with the proper technology, yet how people still get out there and do it by the skin of their teeth.

After lunch, Pat & Dori joined us on a walk around town.  As much of the DR we have seen in the past week, we have only seen the main street of Luperon.  So, we walked a block east of Duarte St., to the town square.  From there we walked south again for a few blocks.  Pat & Dori stopped at the local dentist to make appointments for cleanings.  Several other cruisers have visited this young, female, US trained dentist and gotten cleanings.  The fee?  $12.  We got ours done for $200 in the US while we were there.  Hmmm.  We continued our walk for another block and bought cervezas from a small stand where nobody spoke a lick of English.  But we can order cervaza, get the money right, and thank them all in Spanish.  We're getting there.

We turned back towards the docks on Duarte St., and passed the George Washington School.  This is a little one room affair which teaches English to local kids, aged 12 to 21 or so.  One of the kids saw us walking by, all carrying beers, and yelled for us to stop and come in.  We went in and the teacher, a retired real teacher, welcomed us and gave us all seats.  We then spent a half hour or so conversing in English with these kids.  Each one of us spent several minutes with each kid asking names, ages, favorite colors, and where we were from.  The guy teaches this on a voluntary basis to several different levels of expertise.  I think this was a beginner level, and he said to come back if we wanted at 18:00 any day for the more experienced level.  It was one of those cool local experiences that you don’t find in a cruising guide.  The funny thing was that the kids didn’t understand that we were just as embarrassed to try and speak Spanish as they were to speak English.

Another thing we have observed here is the general attitude of locals to us.  If we just walked down the street talking amongst ourselves, the locals would pay us no mind and ignore us.  But, when we smile, wave, and yell Hola!, they immediately return a big smile, and yell Hola! Hola!.  And while they know that is probably the only thing we know how to say in Spanish, it opens the doors to their real friendly nature.  It's really fun when the little children, barely toddling with no clothes on yell Hola! Hola! and wave back to you.

By now it was after 16:00, and we headed back to the boat.  We put away tools and things from the earlier work, and broke out the rum.  Barb made a homemade pizza and we chilled for the evening, listening to Radio Margaritaville.

GPS N 19-53.936 W 070-57.120  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 8489.

Mar 7

Today we hung around the boat most of the morning, and then met Pat & Dori (Sol Y Mar) and Keith & Karla (Lioness) at Los Almendros for a beer.  We decided to make an ATM run to Imbert and have lunch there.  We walked down to the guagua stand and tried to make a deal.  The going rate for a guagua to Imbert is forty pesos per person.  We were trying to make a deal for thirty.  The drivers were all trying to get us to put six in a little car like we did last week, but we wanted a van.  The way the guagua deal works is that the drivers all try to hustle you into their car and make you a deal for a private ride.  Every now and then, one of them gets tired of hanging out and yells guagua and starts loading his car or van.  Once he packs in everybody he can, he takes off.  If there are empty seats, a second guy will be hanging out the window or side door to recruit more passengers along the way.  If somebody wants out before Imbert, they bang on the roof or side and they stop to let them out.  So, you may stop several times to pick up or drop off people along the way.  Once we were in the guagua, it occurred to us that we were haggling over about thirty cents difference in the fare, and that we were only paying about a buck and a quarter each anyway.  So, when we got to the end we gave them a hundred pesos per couple.

In Imbert, we ran across the busy highway to the building with the ATM.  We were successful again in getting cash, this time in 1000 peso bills.  1000 pesos is about $30.  We walked into the main part of Imbert looking for a place to have lunch.  We passed the place where we had the buffet last week on our way to Carnivale.  Further in town, there were a couple tiny local places that we were all too scared to try, but nothing that looked like it had ever seen a tourist.  So, we went back to the buffet place.  They sat us at a table for six in the front room and said the buffet would be ready in a few minutes.  Turns out they were between tour busses and were reloading the food.  This place obviously has deals with many of the tour operators to stop here.  They all do the same drill as we did, where their tour guides bring the rum and coke from the bus in with them.  After a few minutes we were told to come get food, just before one of the buses got to get theirs.  It was exactly the same menu as we had last week.  A good selection and not bad food, but we probably won't go there a third time.

Done with Imbert, we started walking towards the guagua stop.  Just as with last time here, a driver spotted the six gringos walking that way and asked if we were headed to Luperon.  We said yes, and he offered us a private ride in a van for forty pesos each.  In we got.  We blew past the other guaguas and people waiting at the regular stop and headed for Luperon.  A mile or two down the road, we stopped and picked up a man in a uniform who obviously knew the driver.  OK, it's a sorta private ride.  I think we paid for this guys ride.  Back in Luperon, we hit Steve's for a beer before returning to the boat and then dinghied home.

Tonight is movie night at La Yola.  This week's movie is The Queen.  IF you haven't seen it, it is about the Queen of England's response to the death of Princess Diana.  The movie was pretty good, but it was an obvious bootleg copy.  Every fifteen minutes of so a copyright infringement message crawled though the middle of the picture.  Also, we had the English subtitles turned on so those who couldn't hear well could follow.  The subtitles were so bad that they were distracting us from the real dialog.  I think a third grade Chinese kid must have done the translation.

GPS N 19-53.936 W 070-57.120  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 8489.

Mar 8

Today we are taking a ride with Janet.  We can't call it a tour, because as discussed earlier, Janet can't legally give tours.  But she can be our private driver.  Eight of us met Janet at Marina Blanco and headed to Imbert.  Today is the day that the Haitian market takes place.  The Haitian market is a big garage sale in a blocked off street.  Haiti receives tons of donations of stuff from the US.  They get tons of clothing and shoes.  They don't need clothing and shoes.  They need money and food.  So, the clothing finds it way to these markets at silly cheap prices.  Nothing is priced, and bargaining is expected.  Some vendors had things sort of sorted by type of thing or size, and some just had a big pile of clothes on a blue plastic tarp on the street for you to pick through.  Those of you who know me well know just how much I love garage sales, so you can imagine how much I enjoyed this little foray.  Barb did find a pair of skorts for $3.  Pat bought a pair of brand new brand name sandals for $20.  I thought I may have seen a pair of pants I donated to the Salvation Army in 1972.

Once everybody had all the browsing they could handle, we loaded up and went to find beer.  We stopped at the buffet place once again.  While Pat went in and got beer for those who wanted it, Janet and Tom & Pat (Lone Star) went up the street to a little cafe.  They came back with a bag on empanadas.  Empanadas are a deep-fried dough pocket with something inside.  These appeared to have a small amount of diced chicken in some type of sauce  They were tasty and enough to hold us over for a while.

We drove up through Imbert, further than we have been before, and went down a dirt road out of town.  A mile or so out, we came to a stop at a place where a dozen or more people were carving what they called soap stone.  There was a small river there where they got the rock they carved into beautiful figurines.  There were no other tourists there when we arrived.  We started to walk the length of the tables of carvings with each artist trying to get our attention and show us his stuff.  Soon a young man who spoke very good English, took us all to the end of the room where people were actually working on carvings.  He invited us to sit on a bench and he explained the process as they demonstrated.  It was quite interesting, and he explained that the whole thing is run as a co-op amongst the artists and workers.  We have seen these types of carvings in gift shops in the cities, and he explained that there you would pay two or three times what you could buy one here for.  After the demo, we went back to looking at pieces.  We ended up picking a piece that caught our eye, and the man made us a package deal on three pieces.  Obviously we don't collect this type of thing on the boat, so now we have a few gifts to send somewhere someday.  As we were getting ready to leave, two other tour busses showed up.  This apparently is a regular stop for them.

Our next quest was to find a cheese factory.  It is a quest because little cheese makers are scattered all over the countryside, and none of them have signs or any other indication as to what they are.  Before we got to a factory, Janet stopped in front of a Comados, which is a tiny store found in every town.  Here they gave her a sample of the mozzarella type of cheese they had for sale.  We all liked it, so he bought a hunk and some crackers to pass around the van while we found a factory.  We were almost back to Luperon when Janet whipped into a small parking lot by two small buildings.  There were about a half dozen men sitting around as it was a little after noon, and it was siesta time.  Janet asked if they were making any cheese, and indeed they were.  The owner got them all up from their siesta and had them start showing us how the cheese is made.  They had a large vat with the cheese curds and lots of milky water in it.  They started using a cheesecloth on top and a bucket to strain of the water.  After they had most of the water out, they used a couple of old boards to further squeeze the cheese and get more water out.  Eventually, the cheese would be put into pans that were about a foot square and three inches deep.  There I guess it sits for some period of time before they cut it up into the blocks they sell.  Although the tank and the counters where they did the work were stainless steel, there was a different sense of cleanliness here.  For instance, when something black like something off one of the boards floated to the top of the tank, the guy just scooped it out with his bare hands and threw it on the floor.  There really was no sense that the place was dirty, but there also were no hairnets or latex gloves or even doors on the building for that matter.  There was no English here, and Janet only does a tiny bit of Spanish, but we got the idea and enjoyed it.  The owner came in the room with a block of cheese and cut us each off a sample.  It was like a mozzarella, but yellow.  We figured the color just came from food coloring.  After the tour we asked if they had some for sale, and were told they already took it all to the locals stores.  But at 17:00 they would have more done.  That's fresh cheese.  While we were at the factory, a small flatbed truck with six fifty-five gallon drums on it came in.  This was the milk truck.  We have seen this truck stopping at each little house along the way and dumping anything from a few gallon jug to several old silver milk cans into the drums.  This is quite different from the milk trucks I used to own.  No temperature taking or sample bottles or paperwork here.

Next we passed through Luperon and headed west to La Isabella.  This is where we went to the caves and National Park last week.  We are going specifically for lunch today.  As we pass a construction site where several men are mixing concrete in the street and laying block, Janet suddenly stops and yells out the window.  Turns out this will be the new home of the restaurant we are going to and the owner was there supervising the construction.  He hopped in the van with us and went the next few miles to his current location.  I think the idea was they were technically closed today, but for Janet and eight customers, they would open.  The current location is just outside the gates of the National Park.  He is moving because he rents the current location and the owners want too much money for him to buy it from them.  Some things work just like in the States.

This place is the kind of place we would not have thought to stop at if we hadn't had Janet babysitting us.  Again, there was no English spoken, so ordering was a little but of a challenge.  However, there were a couple orders of fried fish, a few conch salads, and two lobsters ordered.  Of course there was rice and beans and plantains and salad served family style.  The food was good, if a little different.  Nobody seemed quite sure what kind of fish they got, and each plate had two different fish on it.  The lobster was good, but served as the whole animal, cut lengthwise in quarters.  We just ate all the tails parts and probably left some good stuff.  Some of us also switched to rum and coke at this point.  We learned a new word for ordering it.  If you ask for a Cuba Libre, you get rum and coke in a glass with lime as you would expect.  For about the same price, you can order a servicio, and you get a small bottle of rum, a 20 oz. bottle of soda and ice.  A servicio is about the same price and makes three or four drinks.  And, there's no problem with taking alcohol to go, so if you don't finish it you simply take it with you.  The restroom (yes only one) here was a trip too.  It was an outhouse behind the building basically, although the walls were simply a raggedy old blue plastic tarp wrapped around the sticks that made the four corners.  The door did have a latch though, and it was basically clean although there was no seat on the toilet for the ladies.  Not that they would sit on a public seat anyway if they can avoid it.  There was no running water in the restroom.  Things simply went down the hole in the bottom of the toilet which had been modified so water did not stand in the bowl.  I don't want to know where things went from there.  Out in the corner of the dining area was a large plastic water tank with a little sink attached to it for washing your hands.

After lunch, we drove to the houses that we could see from the caves on the north shore last week.  Several of these are for sale.  Each one seemed to have a poor local guy living in or near them to guard them, but we were welcome to look around.  The two we looked at were nearly done and partially furnished.  It again amazed me how nothing ever gets quite finished, and how much money gets wasted by the original dreamer.  Somebody will probably buy these places for ten cents on the dollar someday and finish them.  The views were spectacular although I bet it can get exciting out there in a big storm.

GPS N 19-53.936 W 070-57.120  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 8489.

Mar 9

Today we are taking a really big adventure with Pat & Dori (Sol Y Mar).   We met at Steve's place and had breakfast first.  We had big delicious omelets.  Then, we rented two motorcycles from him for the day.  He has two different kinds of bikes for rent.  The smaller ones are 100cc bikes that are what the moto-concho guys and everybody else drives.  He has two of these.  He also has three 150cc dirt bikes.  We don't plan on doing any off-road riding, but we want the extra power since we will both be carrying two people.  Steve has told us a route to take up into the mountains where we should see great views, find a place to eat and not be in a ton of traffic.  So about 10:00, we left on our adventure.  Barb and I both had Harley t-shirts on.  We all wore jeans instead of shorts, just in case anything were to happen.  There are no helmets in this country.

We left Luperon headed for Imbert.  We have traveled this road several times in cars and vans, so it's slightly familiar.  We are late enough in the morning that we have missed the morning traffic rush.  Bikes always have to ride near the right edge of the road.  Cars will pass you when they catch you, even going around a corner.  So you not only watched the rear view mirror closely for people passing you, but you also don't want to be in the middle of your lane coming around a curve for fear an oncoming car may be passing somebody else.  It took us both a while to get used to shifting these bikes.  They are Chinese bikes with five speeds, but it's all five down with neutral at the top.  Every other bike I've ever ridden was one up, four down.  The bikes are obviously a lot smaller than the Harley was, so just having both of us crammed on there was a good trick.

We stopped for a few minutes in Imbert to stretch our legs and rest our butts.  Dori had whacked her tailbone in a slip on the dock a couple weeks ago, and it's still sore, so she needed a break more than the rest.  From Imbert we are going on a big highway towards Santiago for a couple of miles.  This is the part we are worried about, because this is where eighteen wheelers fly through Imbert laying on their horns.  We got ready and saw no traffic coming down the hill, so we took off.  There is immediately a bridge to cross, but once across it, we got on the shoulder to ride, as Steve has advised us to do.  Shortly we found the road to Guanatico.  From here the road is two lanes and starts climbing the mountain.  It's a nice winding country road and doesn't have a lot of traffic, although you still have to hug your edge.  We got to Guanatico, and missed the turn to continue up the mountain to Los Hidalgos.  We were obviously in a local neighborhood and stopped to consult the map Steve gave us.  Immediately a guy on a bike stopped to help us.  No English, but the words Los Hidalgos got us pointed in the right direction.  We stretched a bit since we had stopped, and then turned around.  When we got to the main intersection where we needed to turn, there was our guy standing in the street waving to make sure we didn't miss it again.  The road got steeper after this, including one part that was so steep we needed to use first gear to climb it.  Trucks actually used this road too.  It was twice as steep as any road would be in the States.  We got into Los Hidalgos and decided to stop and stretch again.  Steve had told us to look for a specific building and turn there.  By accident that was where I chose to stop.  I didn't see Steve's description in the building, but Pat did, and we figured out where to turn.  Continuing up that road, we now were looking for the place with food and beer and a pool.  Unfortunately, we don't know the name.  We topped the mountain and started down the other side.  We passed a place that looked like it might be what we are looking for, but it looked closed.  We continued for a few more miles and decided we had gone too far.  When there was a place on the left that we could turn around in, I pulled in and stopped to tell Pat I thought we should go back.  I didn't noticed the armed guard sitting just off the driveway I chose to turn in.  Even though we were obviously turning around and not coming up to his gate, he immediately started walking towards us with his big shotgun.  He probably just wanted to see if we needed help finding what we were looking for, but we didn't wait to see.  We waved and took off back the way we had come.

We noticed as soon as we topped the mountain that the geography on this side is much different.  It was noticeably hotter and windier, and the plant life was not as green and lush.  It was more like west Texas with an arid look to it.  We climbed back up to the place we had seen to check it out.  El Paso (the pass) is almost right at the top of the mountain.  The sign said it was an "entertainment center".  There were symbols on the sign that indicated they had a bar and restaurant and pool, so we figured this was the place.  I walked up the stairs and there was a nice pool, so I waved the others in.  A man who spoke no English greeted me and welcomed me in.  As the others got to the top of the steps, another man came out from behind the bar area and introduced himself as Jose as he shook all our hands.  Although we are the only people here, they are indeed open.  Jose told us to sit wherever we wished, and took our drink order.  Once he brought us beer, he sat and joined us.  We were planning on swimming, but just sitting in the cool shade with cold beer was relaxing enough.  We though surely the kitchen was not open, since nobody was here, but Jose assured us it was.  There was no printed menu, but he told us what our options were.  We could have fried chicken, pork, or another meat that he didn't know the right word for.  He explained that it was served in a Creole sauce, but we were still unclear on the meat.  He offered to bring a small plate with some rice for us to try.  It was ok, although it had a fair amount of grizzle in it.  We still don't know what it was, but it may have been goat.  We pretty much ruled out everything else.  Pat ordered that, while Dori got pork, and Barb & I split chicken.

While we were waiting for the food to be prepared, Jose joined us again.  They had turned on some American music for us.  We asked about an orange tree that was behind the building.  Jose explained that it was a sour orange, and not good to eat, but they used the juice as a salad dressing or to marinate conch, etc.  He then summoned one of the workers and told him to go get an orange to show us.  The guy came back with a bag of a dozen or so for us.  Jose disappeared for a bit, probably to get the food set up.  He then came back and invited us to the dining room, where our table was set and the food all there, served family style.  We have the meats we had ordered, rice, French fries, green salad and fried plantains.  There was way more food than we could possibly eat.  We did our best though.  We still aren't sure what meat Pat got, and the fried chicken parts that Barb and I had were not the same cuts as we are used to at KFC, but overall the food was good.  By now we had been here a couple of hours, and we needed to head back to Luperon so we are back before dark.  We asked Jose for the bill, and it was $31 for the huge meal and six beers.

The scenery up here is just beautiful.  Unfortunately, there are few places to safely pull off the road get pictures, so it will have to be just a nice memory.  We have passed many more nice homes that are out of context with the local villages.  As with many developing countries, there is quite an inequity between the rich and the poor.  There isn't much of a middle-class.  I'm guessing these homes belong to the rich.  The vegetation is cool too.  Bougainvilleas and palm trees are everywhere.  There are some kind of large trees that are covered in bright orange flowers.  These trees seem to be dropping the flowers, and don't have leaves yet, so it must be part of their spring cycle, but we don't know what they are.  As we pass through the towns, people are all looking.  This is partly because that seems to be the national pastime.  Everybody sits right on the edge of the road and watches the traffic go by.  The houses are right on the edge, as are all the businesses.  So, they are watching anyway, and additionally the bikes we are on stand out because of the dirt bike style, and being nearly new.  Throw into that the fact that you have four white people on the bikes and you become a spectacle.  But, just as with what we have found in Luperon, we would smile and wave, and even though we didn't yell Hola!, we got big waves and smiles back.

The ride back to Imbert seemed shorter than the way up.  Perhaps because we didn't make the wrong turn, and the return trip always seems shorter.  When we got to the big road where we have to do the two miles into Imbert, we waited until the coast was clear to pull out.  We lucked out while on the big road in that no big trucks caught us.  These bikes top out at about 50mph, so we kept an eye on the rearview mirror.  Just as we were crossing the bridge to enter Imbert, my hat blew off.  I keep it clipped to my collar just because of this possibility when you live you life in the wind all the time, but the clip snapped off the collar and there went the hat.  We pulled over on the shoulder at the end of the bridge, where we were going to stop and stretch anyway.  I told Barb to get off the bike and I was going to go back for my hat.  Before I could turn around, a guy on a bike going the other way had turned around, picked up my hat without even stopping his bike, and brought it up to me.  I thanked him profusely and he smiled and turned around and continued on his way.

Dori has decided at this point that her tailbone has had enough abuse, and she wants to take a guagua back to Luperon.  Barb decides to join her so she'll have someone to talk to.  So they walk to the Texaco station to get drinks before crossing the road to the guagua stand.  Pat & I cross the street and wait in the parking lot to make sure they get in a guagua ok.  When they come out of the store a local beggar has picked them up and wants to help them cross the road for a tip.  They ignore him, although he still follows them and expects a tip.  They also are approached by a taxi driver who wants to take them personally, but we see a guagua loading right in front of us.  With all the noise, it's hard to yell across the street and get their attention, but we do and they get in the car.  We head off before them.  The bikes ride easier with only one person, and I'm enjoying the ride a little more, although I think Pat was still a little nervous about the traffic.  We were passed within a mile or so by the guagua with Barb & Dori in it, and then I passed Pat and took off.  Remember, "took off" means about 50mph max.  In one of the little villages along the way, I passed the guagua because it stopped to drop somebody off.  A few miles later, I saw them catching me, but they took the main street through El Strectcho, while I stayed on the highway that bypasses the town.  I had lost Pat by this time and was the first to Luperon.  We have to fill the bikes with gas before returning them, and I missed the gas station as I came into town.  As I turned around to go back, the guagua passed me blowing the horn and waving.  I got my three dollars worth of gas just as Pat rode up.  By the time we got back to Steve's, the girls were already there telling Steve our tales.  He was glad we had found the place he recommended.

By now we were pretty tired and hot.  We had a quick beer at Steve's, picked up some laundry we had left there a couple days ago, and went back to the boat.  Several more boats we know are leaving today, this group headed north, back to the States, so we say goodbyes over the radio as they leave.  It is quite hot this evening, and the breeze died early, so we sat up in the cockpit to enjoy what little breeze there was.  Eventually Barb went to bed as I dozed in the cockpit.  About 22:00, the wind suddenly picked up from the west, where it almost never blows from.  But, there is a large thunderstorm moving over the inland, and although we never got any rain, we were getting wind.  I was concerned with how close we were to Lady M, the Canadian boat next to us, so I called Barb topsides in case we had to move or fend off Lady M.  We sat and watched closely while the storm moved away from us, and eventually went to bed with no fending required.

GPS N 19-53.936 W 070-57.120  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 8489.