We are now in Samana in the Dominican Republic and a lot has happened since our last post (all good).

From Calabash Bay we sailed down the eastern side of Long Island to Clarencetown, where we spent the night. Then it was on the next morning for a long run to the Turks & Caicos where we arrived the next morning. We dropped anchor in Sapodilla Bay and cleared customs. We had arrived in a new country. Sapodilla is of Providenciales better known as Provo, and is a very big tourist destination. There was a beautiful beach right in front of the anchorage ringed with large rental beach houses with lots of activity.

We met everyone in the anchorage, and most are heading in the same Caribbean direction. Paul and Joe on Adios, Mark who was single handing on Cavu, Randy and Tracy on Doing Something Right and Phil and Andrea on Anastasia. We also met a cute young Norwegian couple, Simon and Opal on a 30 ft sloop who were heading in the other direction, trying to sail all the way up the east coast of the US and across to Norway. Check out the pictures in the Gallery.

We enjoyed the Turks, but it is ridiculously expensive. There are no anchorages within walking distance of any services or stores and a cab ride into town was over $100, yep a hundred dollar cab ride. Phil and Andrea on Anastasia rented a car for a few days and we were fortunate to hitch a ride to the grocery store to re-provision.

At the first weather opportunity, we pulled anchor and along with Anastasia headed across the Caicos Banks for Ambergris Cay. This proved to be a lumpy ride, a hint of things to come as we start our slog to windward to get to Caribbean. When we got to Ambergris, we had to navigate between numerous coral heads that reached all the way to surface. We had good afternoon sunlight and no problems, but not for the faint of heart.

At Ambergris, I had to dinghy Lily about a mile to shore and met a couple of locals who came out to tell me that it was a private Island and we could not land. I threw myself at there mercy and begged to let Lilly off to do her business and they relented, with the proviso that we could not be anywhere near the beach.

At this point the weather was starting to turn against us and we had a decision to stay a Ambergris an very open anchorage for 3-5 days, only getting off the boat to walk the dog, or push on to Luperon and the DR. The next morning we decided to go for it. 100 nautical miles to Cabo Isabella where would be able to arrive after dark and anchor. We had to wait for the sun to get high enough in the sky to negotiate to coral heads to get out to sea. This proved to be a true white knuckle experience. It was a veritable mine field heading to the ocean. When the sun would duck behind a cloud, we would have to stop moving until we had the light again to proceed. We finally got out and found a pretty lumpy sea state, 6-8 feet with about a 8 second period. the only positive was the swell was on our beam, it made for a very side to side rolling ride, but we managed and anchored at about 1pm. The next morning we got up early and moved over the 10 miles to Luperon, before the trade winds started to blow at around 10 am each morning

A little about the trade winds. We spent 9 days in Luperon, the winds would be almost dead calm every night from around 10 pm until around 10 am, then the trade winds would kick in every day. They blew and blew hard at times, average wind during the days in the mid 20's and gust to mid 30's at times. No sailing in those conditions. So you play a game, where you sail, close to shore (in the lee of land) at night and use the night wind coming off shore to move around the island.

While in Luperon, we got to know the Phil and Andrea on Anastasia. We went out to the waterfalls (see pictures), had lots of cocktails and dinner, fresh grouper and El Presidente's. The economy in the DR is very depressed and price are the cheapest we have seen anywhere, a grande El Presidente, which is just about a litre of beer is about $2. Good meals run about $4 to $7 at restaurants. I got a dozen large rolls and a ton of pastries for about $3. I could go on (Columbus rum, the local high end stuff, very smooth about $5 a bottle) The old saying you could go broke saving money here.

That's the good, the not so good, Luperon harbor is filthy. When were at the waterfalls we drank the local water and are paid for it. Lisa came down with "La Tourista" the intestinal penalty for about 4 days and is just now recovering. We have to be careful

We are in a nice marina in Samana with a pool and more new friends to head south with.

That's a long one, but that's all for now.