Hey again. So life in Luperon is settling in and my urge to just go sailing is starting to build again. I have not stayed still anywhere for more than 4 weeks in the last year and a half. I can’t believe I actually want to go sailing again.
I have been trying to figure out a way to establish some type of life on land again while I am here. This is very hard for me right now because my best friend / crew Elena is gone so I am alone and I don’t like to be alone. My boat neighbour brother Mic is also alone and the two of us hang out together a lot. Mic is a very lovely human being, very gentle and kind spirit, I enjoy his company. The one thing we try to do is go hiking and stay busy a few times a week.
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Domincian BatMan’s Secret Water BatCave
Well last Tuesday July 23rd Mic helped me take WildChild out of the dirty harbour to go make water out in the channel where we can get some clean Ocean water. Once the anchor was set I am ok to run the water maker alone and it takes about an hour or so to complete a cycle and refill my water tanks. We usually anchor right offshore from Batman’s summer bat cave where the broken stairs are.
Mic had brought his snorkeling stuff with him and wanted a chance to go exploring the waters along the coast. Mic used to be a commercial diver and is a water baby, he just loves being in the water and loves to swim.
If you remember from the last Blog, Mic and I have started going for a hike once a week together just to get off the boat and stretch our legs. Well last 2 hikes were along the Eastern shores where we jokingly found Batman’s summer home. I guess Mic found the Dominican Batman’s actual bat cave on Tuesday.
Mic is way brave and he loves to explore caves. So I guess while he was swimming along the Eastern coastline Tuesday he was checking out all the cracks and cervices in the seawall. Well as he was swimming along he followed A crack in the rocks into a small inner bay and found this irresistible looking cave entrance above the waters surface.
He said he followed it in and it goes back like a hundred feet or more. He said that inside it open up and there was enough of a ledge to get out of the water if you want to. He did not have a flashlight with him and his GoPro camera does not have a light on it, so he was not able to go all of the way back.
He is a very brave guy though and he did make his way a fair way back into the cave when he said he looked up and noticed in the darkness that the whole ceiling of the cave was just covered in thousands of hanging bats..! He could hear them fluttering around and screeching and see them hanging from the ceiling of the cave.
When brother Mic eventually came back to WildChild he told me he found the real BatCave and tried to convince me to jump in the dinghy and go check out the cave for myself… go swim in alone… Funny boy… there was no way I will do that… too creepy for me. I did ask him if he found the real Dominican BatMan… (ha ha) but he said without a flashlight he could not get to the back of the cave to talk to him… 🙂
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The Abandoned Resort
Yesterday we went hiking together on the Western shore here in Luperon. My friend Bryan (the Texan guy) met us at Las Velas and came along for the hike. We always hike in the mornings because it gets too hot here in the afternoons to do anything and too windy to dinghy around the bay without getting wet. The mornings are always peaceful and calm here though.
First we walked up the hill to the abandoned half built resort where we do Yoga. I wanted to show Bryan and I had realized that I have never taken the time to go upstairs or explore the rest of the place. So we figured why not.. hike and find places to explore. Besides Bryan is leaving soon and he has never seen how cool the Yoga studio here is.
Exploring upstairs was actually pretty fun. I couldn’t help but try to visualize the original idea or plan of the designer. You can see that the place would have been fabulous had they been able to complete it. The views are great and the pools they had designed would have been awesome. It is a shame that this great project never got finished. I wonder why..?
I pass by the little secondary building three times a week going to Yoga yet I have never actually gone inside before. The upstairs would have been a very cool room with all its glass windows and spectacular all around views. In the bottom right door I found shelves like maybe you would put in a shed or garage. They were mostly empty but I did find a bunch of old books scattered around. Being infinitely curious I wondered what type of books did they stock this room with…? It turns out they were all in English and seemed to vary from technical manuals to novels. Hmmm… interesting….
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The Beach
Mic has been hiking along the Western coast for a few weeks now but I had never gone before. So none of this was new for him, but it was all new for me.
I had never ventured down the roads this far from town before. By the time we were making our way up the dusty rocky hill the sun was blazing down upon us and we were all covered in sweat by the time we made it to the top of the hill. It was only 10:00am but already brutally hot outside. This is where the road to Marina Blanco (Las Velas) meets up with a main road on the top of the hill.
I guess Mic says that if we turn right there we would go down to the beach where the 4th of July party was, it’s a nice swimming spot because the waters are calm, protected inside the channel entrance. Since I had already been to that beach by dinghy before we opted to turn left and go past the other abandoned resorts.
I must say… it is interesting. Walking along the road there are these huge resorts, massive estate grounds with tennis courts and pools and restaurants, that are all now abandoned. I do not know much about the local economy but it seems these places would have brought in thousands of tourists and employed hundreds of local people. Seeing them now abandoned and decaying reminded me of how the NFTA accord between Canada USA and Mexico decimated all the industry in my home town. We lost 50% of all the jobs within a year of the signing of that agreement. It devastated my home town, I wonder what caused these resorts to close…? I wonder what affect it has had on the local economy..? Hmmm… I am ever curious…
Well Brave brother Mic led us down the road past the abandoned resorts and around the circle to the right and down to the Northern coast behind those resorts. And… Lo and behold…. we found some lovely beaches…
What is hard, is that sailing here from the pristine waters of the Bahamas with some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, where we could swim off the back of our boat for months in perfect clear waters and count the blades of grass on the bottom 25 feet below us,…. into the murky polluted waters of Luperon bay… it is in such stark contrast to what we had gotten used to. Then spending weeks trapped inside the bay (the Navy does not want us to move our boats or leave and they strongly discourage ever anchoring anywhere here along the shoreline)… I started to get the impression that maybe Luperon did not have any nice beaches.
Well…. I was wrong… this beach is awesome.
We walked along the sandy shore of the beach for a while in the sun until the heat beat us back to the cover of the shade trees by the little beach bar. For us 3 gringos (pasty white people) the blazing sun and heat were starting to get to us so this is where we ended our hike, the furthest point we walked to. It was getting on to 11am and with the sun approaching high noon it was time for our retreat back to Las Valas for a nice cold drink and shade and rest to cool down.
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The Farm Animals
No blog entry would be complete without mention of the abundance of farm animals that share this place with us. This is something that I have never seen before in my whole life and would / could never be exposed to back in Canada, it amuses me to no end. I once read a book called “When Elephants Weep” that explored thru scientific eyes, the possibility that animals could have feelings, could they have compassion, can they ever have an altruistic moment? Do they think?
I am a Canadian engineering nerd far more comfortable with electronics than farm animals and I am woefully ignorant about farm life. This is my first exposure to such things. I cannot help but look into the eyes of these animals and wonder what they must think of humans? I stood at the fence very near these horses and they looked at me with their big eyes and they passively watched me, checked me out, kept an eye on me. They did not show any signs of fear nor friendliness. I wonder about what goes on inside their brains? Do they think? Do they feel? are they sad maybe..?
I don’t know… but always curious…
Cheers
Captain Lexi the bored lonely and lost…