Amulet underway

On Thursday, March 9th at 900 we left San Juan for the 60 mile trip, largely downwind in a screaming easterly to Arecibo, Puerto Rico, which is a town at the western edge of the main island, that has very little protection, but has a man made breakwater jutting out into the sea to offer protection for the fisherman in the area. Although we expected some swell and surge, we found it amazingly tranquil behind the breakwater, and even managed a swim. We arrived at 1630, then the following morning worked on adapting the water maker to bypass the faulty salinity probe until 1100. We then set sail to cross the dreaded Mona Passage, which are the straits between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic that plunge to nearly 18000 feet deep, and as a result, offer tricky, unpredictable cross currents. We had a wonderful overnight sail, and had no problems with the Mona Passage, arriving at Porto Bahia Samana, Dominican Republic at 1600. The customs and immigration folks were right down to us the minute we arrived. We had heard about Mr. Shepard, the customs guy some months before from some other cruisers and were glad to meet the man himself.

The Dominican Republic shares a kind of weird ritual with Greece and Turkey, where you have to check in at every port you call on, and get a permit to cruise further on, called a "despacho". This makes the whole process rather cumbersome, discourages stops, especially because each official gently reminds you of the custom that they be "tipped" a bottle of the local rum in order to issue a despacho for the next port. It you want to stop at 10 ports, you need 10 bottles of rum.

With Mr. Shepard, we made it clear that we wished to visit the Parque Haitsis (their national park) some 20 miles distant, and wisely left the rest of our plans up in the air.

He issued us a permit for the Parque Haitsis, and the following morning, Sunday, March 12th, we departed Samana for the park. We arrived just past noon on Sunday, and immediately put in the Zodiac and headed up the mangrove canals for the Eco-lodge Moneroues, where we intended to have lunch. The one hour trip up the canals was phenomenal, almost as good as the destination, which was fantastic. The Eco-lodge was made up of these buildings, which were done in Gaudi-style, fantastic edifices built around a channeled river, which spilled throughout the ground forming pools that people bathed in. We had a nice lunch, surrounded by DR families on holiday, and toured the ground which also offered a panoramic view of the national park. On our trip home we were deluged by a tropical downpour, but fortunately were only about 2 minutes from the boat, and didn't get that wet.

We spent the night of March 12th at the park, in Bahia San Lorenzo, and in the morning visited the nearby limestone caves which featured petroglyphs from the Arawac Indians. Following that we returned to the boat, weighed anchor, and proceeded back to Puerto Bahia Marina, and the town of Samana. We spent the late afternoon exploring the town and having dinner, and were unexpectedly surprised by the grinding poverty of the place. People had said that the DR was an economic miracle located on the same island as an economic basket case, Haiti, but we saw the situation in the DR and we'd hate to see Haiti. The standard of living was dismal.

On Monday the 13th we approached the infamous Mr. Shepard about our further explorations of the DR, and he explained more thoroughly the despacho regulations, and we decided to opt out of our three further stops in the country, and just clear out. We indicated our desire to depart at 0500 in the morning to catch an outgoing tide, and avoid the tide rips off of the eastern end of the island. He replied that it was forbidden by Dominican Republic Maritime Law to leave before 0630 in the morning, and that he would arrive at our boat to check us out at precisely 0630 to make certain we didn't leave early. OK then. We had also heard from cruisers that if the wind is blowing more than 25 miles an hour, the customs people will prohibit departures. Restriction of movement, not good.....

I felt there was little chance he would show up at 0630, but he did. Accompanying him was a gentlemen dressed in street clothes with a baseball cap that said "M-2". Mr. Shepard introduced the gentleman and said that he was from M-2, which according to him, was the DR Secret Service, and that he was here to search our boat. He didn't speak any English. OK, I invited him below and he indicated that he wanted to see our cabin first.
As we entered the cabin, he got out his phone and pushed a text button and handed it to me. It read "I have spent $2 of my own money as gas for my motorcycle to arrive and search your boat. Could you please reimburse me for my fuel costs". I gave him $5, and he completely abandoned the rest of the "search" and headed off the boat. I'm still convinced he was some crony of Mr. Shepard who followed him around shaking yachts down for an easy $5. Mr. Shepard remained behind, and dutifully cleared us. Against our better instincts, we had previously "tipped" him $20 for his efforts. We were very happy he even showed up at all at 6:30 in the morning. So at 0700 on March 14th, we departed for Turks and Caicos, for the overnight sail, some 160 miles distant.

Picture is of the water course in the Eco Lodge at Parque Haitisis