Samana - And Then There Were 3
19 March 2015 | Samana
Andy / Sunny and Hot and Windy
We spent a relaxing 2 days enjoying the resort atmosphere at Puerto Bahia Marina and recovering from our long journey down the north coast of the Dominican Republic. It was now time to do some exploring. We had heard and read many horror stories about dealing with the Dominican authorities when it came to cruising and coastal moves. We double checked with Major Shepherd, the marina Naval officer who issues Dispatchios, and he told us we were free to explore the bay at our leisure and to just check out with him when we were ready to leave for Puerto Rico. Too easy! So off we headed for a 10 mile sail across the bay to Bahia de San Lorenzo. This anchorage is inside the Los Haitises National Park. We did not anchor at the marked anchorage on the chart in front of the ranger station, but rather chose to anchor west of the abandoned pier behind the island and breakwater. This proved to be much better as even in the bay the winds were whipping up the waves.
From our anchorage is was easy to dinghy up through the mangroves and tie up at the dock by the western caves. The caves are an interesting archeological site. There are drawings on the walls dating back 1000 to 9000 years. The tunnel systems allow for a constant inflow of fresh air, fresh water pools and high ceilings with vents to allow smoke from fires to escape. All these attributes are natural rock formations in the caves system. When we finished at the western caves we drove over to the eastern caves by the ranger station. These caves were right on the bay with several large “windows” opening onto the bay. The floor here was sand vice dirt and rock, and seemed more suitable for fishing people. The inland caves would have been for those who preferred harvesting roots and other edibles from the jungle. It was all extremely interesting.
We ended up spending 2 nights at this anchorage. At Last spent 4 nights. We opted to head back across the bay to meet up with some other friends from Spa Creek at the Annapolis Boat Show back in October. We departed the National Park with 22kts of wind coming up the bay. The 10 mile journey ended up being 35 miles as we tacked across the bay a total of 3 times to make it back to the main port of Puerto Santa Barbara in Samana. There we anchored beside Amelia 1 and reunited with our friends Francois and Doris from Montreal. Doris is originally from Chile and speaks fluent Spanish which we took full advantage of. They kindly invited us over for sundowners to catch up on all of our travels since October. This took more than one drink, as a matter of fact I lost count, and we ended the night with plans for a shore excursion into town the next day.
The following morning we proceeded to explore the town of Samana. Francois and Doris had been here for a month as they had to fly back to Montreal for 2 weeks and had left their boat at the marina and moved to the town on their return, so they were quite familiar with the surroundings. We went to a currency exchange that offered the best rate in town at 44.5 pesos to the dollar. They then showed us the 2 grocery stores and explained what to get at each one for the best price. Then we proceeded up the street to the fruit and vegetable market. We love these. We purchased a papaya the size of a football for fifty cents and mangoes were 10 for $2. We couldn’t bring ourselves to buy meat there as the chickens were still running around and you were supposed to pick one while it was alive. Just a little too fresh for us and we have decided that all of our meat must be packaged.
After a full day downtown we stopped for a pizza and a beer on the waterfront. This place also offered wifi for its customers so we got the password and were able to log on from the boat during working hours. It was a slow connection but we could get weather and check email.
The next day Dave and Corrine came into town with Dana. We met Dana at the marina. She has a large Catamaran that she does tours with and now lives in the DR being originally from the US. She is also fluent in Spanish and was able to show us some other places in town. We stopped for lunch at a small family restaurant and had BBQ chicken with fried Yuca. Yuca is a potato like root plant and was friend and then covered in chopped green onion and red onion with a mild vinegar and oil dressing. Total cost of a ¼ chicken dinner was 100 Pesos or $2.10.
After returning to the boat we pulled up the anchor and headed back to the marina. We had an issue with our freezer and Dana told us there was a maintenance worker at the marina who could fix us up. We also wanted to get a day of relaxing by the pool before our next crossing. So after a quick motor we were back at our original dock and making plans. We met with marina staff and arranged to have our freezer fixed the next day. We topped up our water and got our motor and dinghy secured onboard and then spent an afternoon lounging by the infinity pool. We had a nice evening and prepared for our crossing of the Mona Passage to Puerto Rico for the next day. The issue with the freezer had not yet been resolved when we awoke in the morning. At 7:30am our tech showed up with Freon and his tools and recharged our system. By 9:30 there was ice forming on the plate and we were good to go. At 10:00am we departed Samana for Mayaguez Puerto Rico, our 5th country of the journey.