The normal route from the Bahamas to the Dominican Republic is a windward beat in the prevailing southeasterlies. Most people break up the 200+ mile trip by stopping at various places in the Turks and Caicos islands, and we'd planned to do that as well. But the cold front which had swept through the Bahamas left light northerly winds in its wake, making it a downwind run all the way. No way would we turn down a perfect weather window like this one!
We weren't too upset about missing the Turks and Caicos, as we'd been there before on a SCUBA trip some years back. These islands are geologically similar to the Bahamas, with great reefs but no spear fishing allowed, so we didn't have much interest in going there anyway.
We had come in to Abraham's Bay by the wide western entrance, but since we'd moved nearer town it was more convenient to leave through the eastern entrance. This is a narrow pass through the reef that requires good light to see, and we figured that leaving at 2:30 in the afternoon would give us plenty of light at the right angle. What we didn't figure on were the clouds, which moved in front of the sun at exactly the wrong moment. Britt tried to read the water from the bow as best he could, while I shouted depthsounder readings, and we carefully nosed our way through the pass, alert for the crunch of coral against hull. Not a lot of fun!
All tension evaporated, though, when we got into the deep blue and hoisted sail. It was simply lovely out there, especially for the first fifteen or so miles in the lee of Mayaguana. Even after we got out into open water, things were smooth, with no chop at all, just big gentle swells from the north. What really astonished us was the current; we'd expected to be fighting the northwest-trending Antilles current, but apparently we were in an eddy or countercurrent, because we just zoomed along.
We had a quiet night sailing across the "top" of the Caicos islands, and in the morning turned south down the Turks Island Passage. This deepwater channel is used as a migratory path by whales, and lucky Britt saw two of them breach, jumping completely out of the water in what he said looked like slow motion. (He woke me up so I could see whales too, but all I saw was a few 'Thar she blows' columns of spray.)
Late on the second night, the waves started to get a little rougher, as the north winds from the front hit the edges of the easterly trades and accelerated as they turned. It wasn't too bad, since we still were able to get some sleep, and we made good time. At daybreak we could see the mountains of Hispaniola ahead. But as we made our approach to the harbor, so did a rain squall, and pretty soon we couldn't see anything at all. This was obviously not the time to enter the harbor, so we did an about-face, headed back past the entry waypoint, and hove to until the squall passed. ('Heaving to' is a technique used to deliberately stall the boat. We needed practice doing it anyway, as when we first hove to we still made three knots. After some adjustment of the sails and the wheel, we got it down to about one and a half.)
When the skies cleared, we headed in again. Although it was still blowing 15-20 knots along the coast, as soon as we got through the narrow neck of Bahia Blanco we were in another world. Inside the practically landlocked harbor, the water was flat, the wind only a bare breeze. Instead of the low limestone and scrub of the Bahamas, we were surrounded by lush green hills. Dogs barked and cows mooed. We were instantly charmed.
We wove our way among the anchored boats to anchor near the Luperón town dock, where we hoisted our Q flag and waited for the officials. They weren't long in coming, even though it was a Saturday morning. First came a dinghy (commandeered from another sailboat; the Navy's boat hasn't been working lately) with three men aboard: the commandante, an older man in a uniform who spoke perhaps three words the whole time; his assistant who did all the actual paperwork; and the interpreter, a tall, good-looking young man in a Coca-Cola cap and mirrored sunglasses. They copied various things down from our boat's papers and passports (and got a good laugh out of Britt's passport photo, taken before he shaved his mustache), made a somewhat cursory request for a tip, which we didn't give, and then left.
The Navy interpreter had mentioned that the Immigration officials might not come until afternoon, so we decided to wash and catch up on our sleep. I had just stepped out of the shower -- and Britt was just about ready to step in -- when Immigration knocked on our hull. This time it was a narrow wooden boat with three men and a woman, and it was a wonder none of them fell in the water or capsized their boat trying to step up onto ours. We ushered them into our cabin, where they all furiously copied things from our documents again. We paid the Immigration official $10 for the boat and $10 for a tourist card for each of us, good for 60 days in the country. One man was supposedly an "agricultural inspector"; he looked in the refrigerator and asked if we had meat, but he was extremely casual about his "inspection", and in fact ignored the produce we had sitting out in a basket on a shelf. He asked for $5, but we had been told by other cruisers that this wasn't a legitimate fee and declined to pay. The woman asked for $5 for a harbor fee, which we had also been told wasn't legitimate, but she raised a big stink in both Spanish and broken English, waved a receipt in my face, and said she'd make change. She had also carefully wiped up all the muddy footprints she and the men had left in the cockpit, so I decided she deserved the $5 and we paid up.
We helped them back into their little boat, then took down the Q flag and hoisted the Dominican Republic courtesy flag. All in all, it was a painless and pleasant welcome, and we are looking forward to exploring the country.
So far, we've barely explored Luperón. We slept most of the day after we checked in, with one break for a dinghy trip around the harbor, checking to see who was here. On Sunday there was a book swap at the little marina here, so we brought a pile of books we'd finished with and came away with a pile of new ones. We also had barbeque for lunch there, more food than we could eat along with two enormous (one-liter) El Presidente beers, for a grand total of $14. That wasn't a bad deal, but the next day we had lunch in town at a little orange-painted shack and paid less than $6 for seasoned rice and beans, some sort of meat stew (we didn't inquire too closely as to what exactly was in it!), cole slaw, and sodas. It was really delicious, and again more than we could finish.
Luperón is a bigger town than we'd expected. The streets are tightly packed with cinderblock shacks, painted not in the Bahamian pale pinks and yellows but in vibrant Caribbean shades of orange and blue. The people are mostly coffee-colored, a few darker, a few lighter, and the children greet everyone with big smiles and "Hola!" The ubiquitous form of transportation is the small motorcycle or motorscooter, and the sound of unmuffled two-stroke engines is a constant background noise, along with humming generators (the power was out while we were there) and barking dogs. Everything seems busy, moving, bright, loud. We're easing ourselves slowly into this new place. It's going to be an adventure.