Well…. WildChild has been a flurry of activity lately because it seems as though we might be leaving Luperon Tuesday night.
You had seen from my last post I had put my Captains sailor hat back on, began studying the winds and ocean again, looking for our opportunity to make the next jump in our adventure. Well it looks like suddenly there might be a beautiful window opening this Tuesday (Oct 29th) night to Thursday (Oct 31st). This is sooner than we expected or planned to go east but a weather window is a weather window.
The reason this part of the Caribbean adventure is called the thorny path is because the hard part is sailing to windward against the ever present trade winds coming from the East. So for WildChild to make her next jump to the east we need to get the winds off the nose, we can sail 30 degrees TWA (True Wind Angle off the nose) but to be more steady we would prefer to get a TWA of 40 degrees off the nose.
Sailing to windward is never a fun time, in fact it is the most uncomfortable point of sail, but WildChild is a spectacular sailboat that can and does sail to windward beautifully. Most sailors never can or do sail to windward and most of the sailors here will make their jump east by motoring close to shore at night when the winds are their calmest, so they can go almost anytime, but we want to sail not motor. We can sail it but we would need the wind to shift off its usual due east either a bit northy or a bit southy, Wednesday the winds will shift around to a beautiful North East between 15-20 knots, just perfect for a 2 tac jump to the eastern end of the Dominican Republic, a little place called Samana.
The lovely and rare conditions that are creating this beautiful weather window are going to form a 1000 miles north of us in the nasty north Atlantic ocean. There will be two low fronts way up north that will start to swirl around each other and will begin to dump winds towards us from the north. This doesn’t happen often and it takes a lot of energy to divert the ever present and steady trade winds away from their happy steady East to West direction. These 2 lows however will provide just the right conditions to give us our weather window for this jump.
As the captain of WildChild I have to make good decisions as I not only have my life in my hands but Elena’s life as well. If you watched all the season 1 YouTube videos you have seen as I sailed thru all the north Atlantic nasty last year, and I know exactly how much it hurts when I make planning mistakes. I have broken the boat three times in the nasty Ocean already, so I do tend to stress a lot about these decisions.
Well… on this decision “Do we jump out Tuesday night …? or do we wait a few more weeks here in Luperon to make sure the Hurricanes are really done for the year? Hmmm… Well… only 7 November hurricanes in this area in the last 170 years… this has been a very calm hurricane season so far… the 10 day forecasts do not show any Hurricanes coming across from Africa…
Sooo…. ummm…
But the million dollar question I am betting our lives on is… November 5th will this red spot (30+ knots) coming our way start to swirl / rotate …? Is this the going to be the beginning of the next hurricane? Will this form into a hurricane…? If anyone has a crystal ball and can predict the future accurately please tell me… because the decision currently weighing me down like a ton of bricks on my shoulders depends on this answer.
I asked Elena to use her crystal ball and make this decision for us, and of course make a perfect decision, but as always she declined.
——> IF it does form into a Hurricane we should not go Tuesday
——> If it does not form into a Hurricane we should go Tuesday
Of course my problem is that I do not know for sure what will happen in the future but I still have to make a decision by tomorrow (Monday).
Recently we have gotten WildChild all ready to go, we cleaned the hull yesterday (yucky miserable chore), the water maker is good to go, we provisioned Friday with about $1500 of food (we are good for 6 months of food), today we did all the laundry, we emptied and cleaned the emergency water jugs on the deck, and small projects like I had to replace some of the cockpit blue LED’s.
WildChild is ready to go … if I do decide to make this jump…
I feel like I will be kind of stressed out tomorrow (Monday October 28th) as I have to make a decision by nightfall.
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Good-bye Luperon
Well for any future sailors thinking of spending a hurricane season nestled in the protective bosom of Luperon’s harbour surrounded by hills and mountains…
I remember before we came here how nervous we were about this place, I remember all the bad things we heard from so many other sailors about how unsafe and shifty this pace is, I remember fearing the corruption and bribes, I remember fearing crime here, I remember our run down first impression of this place when we first pulled in 5 months ago….
I think that despite the nasty way the ex-pats here tore me apart for my first impressions of this place, they were sort of right about one thing, this place does kind of grow on you after a while.
Yes it is very true the bay is full of very dirty poo water. You definitely do not want to swim off your boat in here.
Yes it is true they live in rusty shacks and farm animals walk around and shit everywhere, so it is sort of like visiting a farm. Yes dogs run free everywhere, I have never seen a Dominican with a dog on a leash. So if you are afraid of dogs definitely do not come here.
No it is not true that there is much crime here. This place is actually very safe. They are poor and I’m sure sometimes people do steal, but in the last 5 months I was here I did not hear of a single theft from a boat in the bay.
Yes it is true sometimes the police do stop gringos for bribes but it is not very often and they are not too aggressive about it. And yes there is always the Gringo sucker price for white people but most of the stores have been very fair about selling stuff.
Yes they do charge you for the privilege of visiting their country but it is not crazy expensive like the Turks and Caicos (don’t visit there its not worth it). I think it worked out to about $140 usd for us to check into the DR and they hit you up for another $40 per month in fees when you want to leave.
Yes it is true the Dominican Navy has some weird ideas about sailboats. They seem to want very tight control over your vessels movements. I heard they treat pleasure craft with the same rules as commercial vessels, which of course is stupid, but its the Spanish way I guess. While you are in the DR you are not allowed to go sailing, they expect you to park in the bay and never move your boat without express written permission from the navy. Legally you cannot anchor anywhere along the DR shoreline, ever. They expect you to only stop and stay in designated ports with a Navy presence to control you. So be prepared to submit yourself to their stupid rules.
Yes it is true this place is very cheap. The food is less expensive, You can eat at a nice restaurant for like $10 per person. The mooring here is only $2 per day or $60 per month. A taxi ride in a moto-taxi (like a motorcycle with 3 wheels and a double backseat) for an hour only cost us $4. You can buy a super sized beer here (like double the normal size you get back home) for only $3.
Yes the locals will stare at you. But… and this is the grow on you part… they are actually lovely and very kind people once you get to know them. So yes they speak Spanish and yes it takes a while to start learning Spanish words but even with the language barrier their is never any malice in their eyes. They generally smile at you and try to figure out what you are trying to say to them, they will generally all try to help you if you ask. The Dominican culture is a peaceful culture. So my initial fears were completely unfounded, it was all American misinformation and propaganda. Relax this place is very safe.
Ohh… and on the language barrier thing… install the Google Translate app on your cell phone. It makes life so much easier.
Cell phones and internet. For $40 per month you can get a local SIM card on a local unlimited plan. Now bear in mind when they say unlimited plan they do not mean unlimited data they mean sort of unlimited talk minutes and 15GB of data. BUT… in Luperon Bay there are 3 cell towers around us and perfect LTE cell reception. The internet is high speed. So while wasting your life away here in the bay you can at least stay in contact with the outside world.
YES it is hot here in the summer but I hear it is less hot than Texas or Florida in the summer so meh… its all relative. To these Northern sailor girls though… we have been dyin from the heat everyday. It is so hot we mostly do not wear any clothes on the boat and try not to move in the afternoons. We are always dripping in sweat which personally I hate. At night we cannot even sleep naked with a thin cotton blanket on us as it will get too hot. Everyday on WildChild it is 35 degrees C inside the boat and that’s in the shade with all the hatches open, plus usually 60-70% humidity.
As for social life here… I think… If I was not so socially awkward and if Elena was not so introverted shy and super quiet… there is an active social community here. There is a wonderful local ex-pat group of sailors that are very open and welcoming to strangers. Plus a bay full of like minded sailors from all over the world to socialize with. If you are a social person you will make plenty of friends here. There are a fair number of sailors that stay here for years in this bay. I should warn you though… socially this place is like a high school… unbelievable amounts of gossip and little clicks form and the bored ex-pats feed on the new people like prisoners desperate for new stimulus. I found that talking about me behind my back has become a favorite pastime for like a dozen of them. Its weird and takes some getting used to.
The best part of staying in Luperon is Wendy’s bar and the family. Norm and his wife Yani were sailors just like us for years and years until they settled down here. Yani’s sister Wendy owns the Gringo bar. Their brothers and whole family help out us sailors everyday. They might be the nicest family I have ever met. They are most welcoming to strangers and us lost sailors when we first stumble into town. They are so very kind and helpful it is almost worth the sail to Luperon just to meet them and visit Wendy’s bar. As Norm says its like a beach bar without the beach.
I love them all.
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I think that our stay here in Luperon was not a mistake. It was an adventure. I think it is unnecessary for you to sail all the way out and around the DR on your way south to the Caribbean. The DR is an interesting place and totally worth visiting.
Cheers Sailor fans…
The Blogs will get back to the sailing adventure soon.
Captain Lexi …
… the currently indecisive …