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| Farewell Jamaica |
Hello Again,
Monday 7th May 2018 Time to say farewell to Jamaica
We wake early, and it is still raining. Low cloud hangs over the hills around the
bay. It is 29.6deg.c. Rather humid. But the winds are forecast to be easterly to
south easterly, just what we need as we head up towards the Windward Passage
which will take us between Cuba on our Port, and Haiti on our Starboard. This
stretch of water is known for fluky, or, extra strong easterly winds, and strong
currents. Let’s hope we time it right.
We have the Sierra Maestra mountain range rising to 1,972mts along the Cuban
coastline, then dropping dramatically into the sea with depths reaching to 7,239m
in the Oriente trough. Close to the
coast one can take advantage of the katabatic effect of the winds in the early
hours of the morning if we strike the calms.
On the Haitian side we have the Golfe de la Gonave.
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Shamal in Luperon
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| Luperon |
Even though we are ashore early to collect our clearance
papers, the boys don’t arrive until 1045.
By the time all is completed, we arrive back on Shamal, take down our
shades and make a coffee while the last of the rain passes through. It is midday when we lift anchor and move out of
Port Antonio. Three other boats were
going to leave with us, but have decided to wait another day. By 1300 we are sailing along very nicely
under full main and jib, then a line of squalls shows up on the radar, so we
reef down. They don’t affect us too
much, and we are still moving along at 6kts. Our run through the Windward
Passage turns out to be a broad reach with wind gusts only to 22kts. The tide is in our favour and by early
morning we have turned the corner and are running along the north coast of Haiti.
A few hours later the winds have come around to be on the nose again. This makes for a long slow passage for the
last 60nm towards Luperon on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. It is not till the following morning that we
slowly motor into the wonderfully sheltered harbour and pick up a mooring
buoy. We are surprised by the number of
yachts in the bay. Many have been closed up for the coming hurricane season,
but we soon learn there are others like us, just stopping off for a few nights
before heading out again.
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Luperon
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Before Christopher arrived on the Island, the Taino people
live peacefully here arriving from eastern Venezuela in huge dugout canoes,
around 2600BC. They called it Haiti.
Today the whole Island is known as
Hispaniola. The western end has retained
the name Haiti, and the eastern and larger portion of the Island is known as
the Dominican Republic, or D.R. for short.
Two colonies grew on Hispaniola, one Spanish and the other French. In 1804 after a 70 year struggle between the
two, the French colony gained independence.
They retained Haiti and tried to unify the Island, but the Dominicans
never accepted Haitian rule and in 1844 after a bloodless coup they reclaimed
Dominican autonomy. They resubmitted to
Spanish rule, but by 1864 had become independent.
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| A drink at "Wendy's", Luperon |
The D.R. has a rich and diverse landscape. The highest peak
in the Caribbean is found here, along with the lowest point which sits 40mts
below sea level. The rich valleys grow coffee, bananas, cacao, rice and
tobacco. There are about 1000 miles of
tropical coastline with coral reefs, islands and white sandy beaches dotted
with coconut palms, and some huge hotel complexes.
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| Luperon |
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| Local Store in Luperon |
Luperon. Yes it is a
wonderfully sheltered harbour, and one of the better hurricane holes in the
Caribbean, but, this muddy bay is filthy which only encourages the growth of
barnacles and marine growth on ones hulls.
We have had our copper coat anti foul paint on for 10 years now, and it
has worked brilliantly – well up until now.
Yes we are due for a re-paint. By
the time we left Luperon I am not too
sure how many more kgs. of marine growth we had grown to slow us down !!!!
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Note all the 15hp out boards
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| Dories piled on Fishing Boat |
We go ashore to complete our arrival formalities and pass the local fishing fleet on the way to the tender dock. Ever wondered where your 15hp out-board went?!? Maybe it ended up here, being used on one of the fishing dories!!
The township here is not large. Small wooden homes and shops line the dusty
streets. Basic supplies can be found here, but if one needs to stock up, a visit to the larger
town of Puerto Plata, an hour away, gives you a much greater choice. The people
are poor, but very friendly. There are
two marinas, one with haul out facilities.
Again very basic, but a work in progress. The other has a good restaurant and bar with
Wi-Fi. We take a walk from the harbour
over to a lovely sandy beach which once had resort hotels. They are now broken buildings looking worse
for wear. Further along the coast line
new and more modern resorts have sprung up which may have caused the closure of
these ones. There is also the usual
bunch of foreigners who have arrived on their boats, and for some reason or
another, have decided to stay, mostly working in the marine industry. An example of their good work was, on our
motor sail along the last 60nm of coastline to get here, and in the middle of
the night in reasonably rough seas, we hear a loud bang – oh help what is it
this time !!! We had not hit anything
thank goodness, but the tender is now trailing its bow in the water. The hard point in the floor of the tender
where the davits attach, had snapped.
Now here we are trying to sort out another way to lift the bow out of
the water. We soon had it under control
and lifted it up again, but now we needed a new hard point welded in. A young guy in Luperon had a solution and fixed
it for a quarter of the price it would cost in any first world country. He did not like the idea of welding a new
piece on in as he may hole the tenders inflatable tube, so he made a new
bracket out of thick alloy and was able to bolt it in. Problem solved. Another
service that is provided is fresh water, diesel etc will all be delivered to
your boat.
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| Alec filling the water tank |
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| Sargasso Weed on Shamal's bow |
It’s time to move on, but the weather is now continually
easterlies or east south easterlies. We
are now following the advice from the cruising guide “The Gentleman’s Guide To
The Passage South” This passage east is
known as the “Thorny Passage” as the winds blow from the same direction all
year. The guide suggests we do more night
sailing when the winds are lighter, rest up during the day, then continue
on. This is what we do. It is definitely not exactly like the guide
says and we have some horrid legs, but eventually we reach Samana, towards the eastern end of
the Island. We do it in three more hops,
spending the first day anchored off Rio San Juan waiting for the trade winds to
drop before continuing on that evening to El Valle at the eastern end of Bahia Escocesa. Neither placed do we go ashore. We are now also encountering a lot more of that Sargasso Weed.
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| Rio San Juan |
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| El Valle |
At the beginning of the last leg, which
we decide to do in the early hours of the morning so we arrive in daylight as
it is only a 32nm run where we will round the two last capes and head for the
town of Samana on the east coast, more problems arise. We up anchor and head out of the bay. Winds are about 17kts and increasing, so we
decide just to run under 3rd reef.
We can’t even raise the main. The
halyard has somehow become caught in the rigging in front of the mast. Not only that, the outer sheath of the
halyard has all frayed as it must have been rubbing on something. Oh !!!!!!
We set off with only a reefed jib.
The winds and seas increase, and then to top it all off the squalls
arrive once more. With winds now gusting
to 37kts Alec decides we need to get away from the coast and head out to sea
for a bit. Not good to be on a lee
shore. It took us 8 hours to do that
32nm., but finally we drop anchor in Samana Harbour. We spend the rest of the afternoon on board,
only to be visited by the Navy guys in a small run-a-bout to inform us we must
check into each port with our papers.
Ours are all in order so there are no problems.
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| Samana |
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| Samana |
The following day –Sunday- we venture ashore as we now need
a good walk to stretch our legs and have some exercise. We head off around the
bay to a hotel on the corner of a peninsular, then out on the long bridge to
know-where !! The only way to describe it is to see the attached photos. Samana
is a lovely town, rather isolated, but this contributes to its charm. In a
country dominated by the Spanish, American former slaves settled here in the 19th
century. Later more African-Americans joined them. In 1949 the dictator Trujillo built a road
into the isolated town, then burnt it to the ground to force the population to
heel and make them learn Spanish. Great
guy !! The water front is a horse shoe shape with a park with lovely big trees
and lawns with small eatery and drink stalls. There are also a group of
colourful wooded houses with tourist shops long main street. This is also a cruise liner port we were
told. It is a good stop for supplies
with wonderful fresh fruit venders selling the in-season fruits. Mangos, papaw (papaya) and pineapples were
our favourite.
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| The walking bridge |
Many tourists come to Samana to watch the humpback whales that are in the area between December and March. Of course we have missed them. They have now migrated to North America for the summer.
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| Samana |
On the Monday we move Shamal around to the Puerto Bahia
Marina which is outside the harbour, and situated on the north shore of Samana Bay. It is a lovely modern complex including hotel, guest houses and a fully serviced marina. We need the marina for 24 hours as we will replace the main halyard. After picking up fuel, we move SHAMAL into a dock - high concrete, so we put out plenty of fenders and put on plenty of lines. Concrete docks and plastic boats are really not compatible!!! Alec explains to the manager what needs to be done, and to our surprise he offers to go up the mast and do the job for us. His boys will wind him up as the place is not buzzing with business at the moment as it is the off season. He tells us it will give them something to do. We are more than grateful to have them do the job for us, and it does not cost us a cent. Alec does supply them with a case of "liquid refreshments " for their effort which they are more than grateful for. We give SHAMAL a good fresh water wash down, I am able to catch up with the washing and cleaning., then we enjoy a lovely meal at the out door restaurant overlooking the bay. It was just a pity we didn't get to enjoy a swim in one of their pools.
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| Changing the haylard |
The next day we say farewell to the marina staff and move SHAMAL back around into Samana Harbour. We need to make plans to move on again, and it looks like the winds may drop in a couple of days for our crossing of the Mona Passage - the stretch of water between the D.R. and Puerto Rico
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| Puerto Bahia Marina |
We will follow the D.R. coast dropping slightly S.E. and then do a tack to the N.E. to round the Hourglass Shoals - named because they are in the shape of an hourglass lying on it's side. The waters over the Shoals are several hundred feet deep, but you have the very deep waters of the Puerto Rican Trench colliding with the shallower waters of the shoals creating a lot of energy with choppy seas and currents which are best avoided. Once past this area will tack again to the S.E. and hopefully be in for a good run down the west coast of Puerto Rico and into Boqueron, our first port of call . Well that is the plan. Time will tell. You will have to wait till our next posting to see how it all went. The plan is to sail the southern coast of Puerto Rico.
We will sign out for now.
Love from
The Admiral and The Commander
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