Well we have been in Dominican Republic(DR) since the first week in July at a safe harbour in Luperon on the north coast of DR about 1hr west of Puerto Plata. The reason we came here is that Luperon is a well documented safe haven for boats looking to avoid the hurricane during the months of June - November. If you look at a map of the caribbean you would look at DR and it would appear to be almost in the middle hurricane alley. View Map , 2005 Hurricane Map

Whilst DR is fairly central in the hurricane belt and does suffer from occasional hurricane strikes; the north coast, and in particular Luperon, has some natural protection that has made it popular with sailors for hundreds of years.

As the tropical waves (potential hurricane) come off the coast of Africa they mostly travel is a North West direction. At first the wave is just a huge band of cold and thunder storms (squalls). If the storms can begin to rotate around then we are heading for a tropical depression. As the wind speed increases it becomes a tropical storm and finally as the wind reaches +65mph it becomes a Hurricane and gets a name.

One of the diving forces for these storms is the warm water of the caribbean sea, this provides the energy. As such when the storm passes over land it is starved of its energy source and normally starts to weaken. Land areas with mountains make life for the hurricane even more difficult by draining its energy even faster. Luperon on the North side of DR is protected by several mountain ranges and therefore historically hurricanes which have to cross DR are almost exhausted by the time they reach to north coast and Luperon. There may still be high winds but maybe only half the strength that they were when the storm made landfall on the south of the island.

It is important to remember that nowhere in the caribbean area is totally safe but Luperon is about as safe as it gets.

Bahia Luperon

The above pictures of Bahia Luperon shows about half of the boats anchored here. On the near right hand side just out of the picture is Puerto Blanca marina and one of the mangrove canals. If you went over to the far side of the bay and followed it round to the right you would come to the government dock and the town of Luperon. The picture is taken from Luperon Yacht Club high on a hill over looking the bay.

We arrived in DR in the first week of July 05, the hurricane season had officially started 1st June but normally June is very quiet so we had intended to be in DR 1st July. We arrived 28th June 05 and stayed until 3rd November when we headed to Puerto Rico (PR).

The island of Hispaniola is what most people call third world, however it is caught somewhere in between and is catching up very quickly. Manual labour is very cheap here, the local currency is the Dominican "Peso" there is about 33 Pesos to the dollar, and about 60 to the pound. A local unskilled worker can expect to get 200-300 pesos per day. Someone earning 500 pesos a day is being well paid. That's about 1 pound per hour. Lawnmowers and strimmers are few and far between, the grass and weeds are kept under control by a man with a large Machete. It is not unusual to see the man cutting grass with his machete while talking on his mobile phone.

They have a national grid for electricity and although this supply was once free and run by the government is now is a private company. When people have had something for free they don't like to then pay for it so all along the roads you see wires coming from people houses hooked on to the power line. The power company shuts the power off and goes along cutting these cables. The locals just hook them on again when they leave. As a result Luperon only had mains power about 3-4 hours a day. Most people had solar panels, wind generators and battery back-up to keep their own power working. Internet access is the next boom industry, high speed internet is just now becoming available in some areas.

The Bay of Luperon (Bahia Luperon in Spanish) is a large bay surrounded by mangroves. During 2005 there were about 100 boats anchored up, most of these were people living aboard and looking for safety for the hurricanes and then to continue their journey. The bottom of the bay is thick mud and after a couple of days your anchor sinks deep down and holds very well. In fact when we came to leave it took about 20 minutes to pull one of our anchors up. The water whilst not something you would want to swim in was full of life. Locals caught and ate fish here and barnacles grow incredibly fast on anything you have in the water. Keeping the bottom of the boat, your anchor lines and dinghy clean is a difficult job.

The capital, Santo Domingo, is on the south coast of the island, it's second city Santiago is almost in the middle. Both are crowded and noisy with twice as many cars as they have space for. Motorbikes are a common mode of transport, 100cc Yamaha is the standard bike, and after a while it's become normal to see 3 or 4 people on one, the record we saw was 5, 3 adults, 1 child and a baby.

Chicken is the meat of choice for the locals; rice, beans and chicken is almost like a national dish. There is no end to how many different ways chicken can be cooked. Although fried chicken with spicy sauce became one of my favourites.

Some people arrive in Luperon and move on at the end of the hurricane season, however there is a local population of non dominicans who arrived here and just never left. Its a local joke that sometimes the mud has such a good hold on your anchor it's impossible to leave again. Many of the local restaurants are owned by Gringos who have made this their home.

We had been waiting for good weather for about 3 weeks but as we were in the most active hurricane season since records began over a hundred years ago we had to keep waiting. The idea had been that I would set off with the boat and would take crew (Chuck, a friend who also has a boat like ours in DR) and Suzanne would stay with Terri (Chucks wife) on their boat. After 3-4 days Suzanne would fly out to PR about the time we got there in the boat and everything would be fine. However with the weather delaying us setting off and as Suzanne was getting bigger by the day it was decided that Suzanne would have to go and check in a hotel and we would just have to get there as soon as we could.

Eventually the weather gave us a half window, really to do the 350miles it takes about 4-5 days. The stretch of water between the Dom Rep and Puerto Rico is the Mona Passage where water from the equatorial currents are spilling in the Puerto Rican Trench, the second deepest hole in the world. As the water rushes through the Mona it is affected by huge variation in the depth of the sea bed which can cause the seas to be confused most of the time and treacherous with very little warning. With a long history of boats and ships much bigger that ours being overwhelmed by the sea we give this body of water much respect.

The usual wind (trade winds) which they have in this part of the world come from the Southeast, to get where we need to go on this journey we need to head right into them which makes sailing almost impossible. Mostly motoring at night when the daily trade winds subside makes for a much less bouncy crossing and we should have been able to complete the journey in about 5 nights. As the window we left in was only good weather for 3 days or less we had to work the engines hard to keep our average speed high enough to make it across before the weather deteriorated. Our plan was to keep going day and night until the weather forced us to stop. If we were lucky we may be able to get all the way across before the next round or bad weather comes in. If we don't make it all the way on this window we could be stuck is some remote anchorage for a few days before the weather breaks again.

We left Luperon about 3.00pm, 7 hours before the trade winds dropped off making it a rough start to the journey. We motored all afternoon and through the night and eventually entered the bay of Samana the next day at 1.00pm. We needed to refill the fuel tanks to ensure we had enough fuel as we had completed about 1/3 of the journey. The bay of Samana is a very scenic place to be, surrounded by lush tropical mountains. It also has a healthy trade in stolen outboard engines. Samana is one of the favourite jump off point for illegal immigrants wanting to get to the US owned island of Puerto Rico . They cross the 150mile stretch of water in wooden open boats powered by what ever stolen outboard engine the smugglers can get hold of. It seems the local police and navy are involved in the scam so if you have your dinghy and engine stolen in Samana....... it's not going to be found.

This is a good stop over point to get some much needed sleep but with the problem of having to stay awake to guard the dinghy and engine and as the weather today was great and with almost no trade wind to slow us down we decide to keep moving. After a 3 hours stop to refuel the tanks and some money paid to an official for some fabricated entrance fee to the harbour we headed out again. We motored all night doing 3 hours watches while the other one tried to get some sleep. Later the next morning and ¾ of the way across the Mona we had Puerto Rico in sight.

About lunch time we downloaded Emails and weather information to the boat. The weather looked ok and at this point we were about 7 hours away for the nearest entry port of Mayaguez. Suzanne was on the other side of the island about 70 miles away by car, about 100 miles(16-20hours) by boat. We wanted to make land before customs and immigration closed at 5pm. We pushed the engines harder but it became apparent that we were not going to make it in time. We decided that rather than go into Mayaguez and sit there all night waiting for Customs to open in the morning we would change course and as the weather was still good we would head straight for San Juan on the North Coast of the island.

Earlier in the afternoon the US coast guard flew over us in their helicopter and took a close look at us. No doubt they made our position and heading and notified Mayaguez of our impending arrival. Within sight of Mayaguez and after calculating that we had enough fuel for the trip, we made an abrupt change of course and headed for San Juan . Within a couple of minutes of our change of course the local Coast Guard vessel was calling us on the radio and heading in our direction and closing in fast. We had about 10 minutes of radio interrogation and eventually they decide not to board us and let us continue on our way. Things went ok until about midnight when in the darkness I saw a small boat with no lights boat pass right in front of us. Then a spotlight and blue flashing lights came on and we were stopped again while the police asked us the same questions about where we were going and where we had come from etc.

Eventually on our way again and about 4am Saturday we arrived at San Juan harbour where due to the amount of cargo vessels and cruise liners entering and leaving the port we waited about 4 miles off shore until 6.00am and daylight when we made our way into San Juan Marina and docked. In all the journey took 63 hours and with about 15 of them being in rough seas. By 10.00 we had checked in with customs. Chuck booked a flight back to Dom Rep for the next morning. All the way from DR we had been talking about the "Big Juicy steak" we would have when we got to PR however after a couple of beers we were so tired we both fell asleep on the boat and never did get to the steakhouse.

Chuck flew back to Dominican Republic the next morning to get his boat ready for his crossing. Suzanne is back on the boat with the air con turned up, a book in one hand and a biscuit in the other as her appetite grows at the same rate as her tummy. After another appointment at the Doctors on Tuesday all is OK although baby is a little smaller than he should be at this time but only by about 1 ½ weeks and everything else seems just as it should be. She has twice weekly checks at the doctors. Currently at 34 weeks with not long to go now.

We are staying here until probably the end of January 06 and then we will hopefully set off to the Virgin Islands which are only a short hop away from San Juan .