Nerve Racking
This next step is our longest passage to date. Our trip from Pensacola to Punta Gorda was pretty long, but we were leaving from a stable home base, well-provisioned and well-rested. This one will be…not that. From Georgetown to Samana, Dominican Republic is around 600 miles or so. The good news is that, unlike Pensacola to Punta Gorda, there are stopping options.
We watched for the weather and once a break started to present itself, we started moving. The first step was to Calabash Bay at the north end of Long Island. We left Georgetown late morning and hopped over to Long Island and set the anchor before sunset. We had no plans to go ashore at Long Island and were simply using it to stage the hop to Crooked Island. The next day, we left after lunch and headed for Crooked Island, south east of Long Island. That trip was slightly longer, but we had decent sailing for both sections of the crossing from Georgetown.
Crooked Island
Once we got to Crooked Island, we knew we were going to be waiting for the next weather window in order to start the nearly 500 mile trip to Samana in the eastern part of the Dominican Republic. An ideal window would have 10-15 mph winds from the north, or possibly even some westerly component. At this point in the season, we knew that we could wait forever for such a window so we were really just waiting for the southeastern wind to ease up enough that we could motor into it somewhat comfortably.
Crooked Island turned out to be a decent little spot. A true “out-island”, only a few hundred people live there and every single person we encountered knew all of the others. There is a single “grocery” store, which rivals the best rural gas stations in the US :( for what is available. If you are lucky enough to find a few things to eat, you can spend $200-300 to stock up on 2 bags of groceries.
Running
The running here was great. The roads, unlike most roads in the Bahamas, have been built or resurfaced since the fall of the Roman Empire. Slow, rolling hills – quite common in the Bahamas – added some varied terrain that is reminiscent of Texas Hill Country due to the scrubby trees that are everywhere. Very little traffic plagued the roads, since pretty much no one lives here, and other than church on Saturday, no one seems to have anywhere they need to be.
Refueling
I filled all of our fuel tanks at the marina on the north end of the island, which was an interesting field trip. I tend to go on these refueling expeditions alone since in the best case, they are still a pain in the butt. This was no exception. I got to the marina and was able to find some guy who told me where the fuel dock was. When I got to the dock, I realized that they are very specifically built for the super yachts that the marina is built for. After tying up to the pillars of the dock, the dock surface was about 8 feet above the dinghy. After a few minutes I managed to get up onto the dock. No one was responding over the radio so I wandered around in search of the fuel guy. After some wandering and chatting with a few people, I found the guy and was able to get fueled up. He redirected me to another dock that had a ladder which made actually fueling up much easier than lugging the jerry cans up the eight foot difference between dink and dock.
Bird Rock Lighthouse
Near the north end of the island, where we were anchored, is a small island called Bird Rock. It has an old lighthouse (no longer in service) and we decided to go land on the island for a look around. The distance each way was about one mile near Crooked Island and one mile across open water, which I knew from my refueling trip was very choppy and not a good dinghy ride. So, we waited until a fairly calm morning since it was windy every day but generally a bit calmer first thing in the morning. When we finally went, it was a reasonably smooth ride and all was going well, until we got close and then quickly realized that this was the most dangerous thing we’ve done yet. There was a small strip of beach for us to land on, otherwise the island was surrounded by rocks. The waves were crashing on the beach, but also wrapping around from the side. So we had waves breaking (small 2 foot waves, but still a lot when you are in a dinghy) from two directions as we tried to land ashore. As we approached and I jumped out to haul the dinghy up onto the beach, waves were breaking over the side and flipping over the dinghy. We hurried the kids ashore and out of the way while Grete and I struggled to get the Sea Pug high enough up the beach to be free from the waves. The motor had been knocked sideways and was barely attached to the back of the boat. For security reasons we keep a lock on the outboard motor, but I did not have the key with us so I couldn’t loosen the bolts in order to loosen the bracket and fully re-attach. I was able to manhandle the thing back about 60% on which was going to have to do.
We walked around the island and took a look around. It was really pretty and we had the place all to ourselves. My mind, however, was only thinking about the fact that we had to relaunch the dinghy and get back through the breakers in the other direction. I was in no way relaxed on that little island. When we were finally ready to go, Grete and I talked through the plan and the execution was perfect. I pushed us into the breakers, jumped ashore and got motored through the breakers without incident.
Things I hope I learned:
- Always have the key for the outboard lock, in case the motor needs to be adjusted in any way.
- Don’t underestimate small waves when in the dinghy. When 230 pounds of dinghy is flipping on top of you and your family, everyone is in acute danger.
- I’m not ready for landing on breakwater beaches.
Food
It’s probably obvious by now, but I love food and the Bahamas is the worst place I’ve ever been for food. The restaurants are not good. The grocery stores are terrible. All of it is way overpriced. So, we were very pleasantly surprised when we ate at Gibson’s Restaurant #2 in Landrail Point. Miss Willey was able to accommodate our Celiac needs and served up one of the best meals I’ve had at any restaurant. The food was served family style while we chatted with other boaters and vacationers for the two hours that the meal lasted. We ate amazingly delicious food until we were completely stuffed. Then, when we went to pay for our surf and turf feast, we paid $120 for our family of four. It was the single best food experience of our trip so far and probably well into the future.
Obviously, we all wanted it again, so the day we were heading out, we slid on in for lunch and got another amazing feast experience. Then the weather was ready and so were we.
En Route to the Dominican Republic
We left Crooked Island to head east right after dinner. The wind was still fairly hard out of the east, but our goal was to make some progress (we were hoping for 100-120 miles) in the first 24 hours when the wind was projected to slow and change direction giving us a reasonable chance of getting past the Turks & Caicos before heading southeast for Samana. Well, that didn’t happen. We pounded and rolled into the waves quite nauseatingly for that 24 hours and made about 50 miles of headway. Part of this came from the fact that when motoring we generally get some stability, and often a knot or more of speed, from our mainsail. The main was jammed again though and upon looking, it was clear why it wasn’t coming out normally; the sail tear had grown a lot. So, no mainsail for the duration of the journey until we pick up our new sail in Puerto Rico.
At that point it was clear that we were not going to make Samana before the heavy winds rolled in on Friday. So we started heading south instead for Grand Turk. We didn’t plan to go to T&C and did not meet the import requirements for our cats, but the weather was coming and we needed to get to port. Once we turned south and we not heading into the wind though, we started moving…fast. We went from 2 knots upwind to 7-8 knots across the wind and were making very strong progress.
The sun had just set, so it was mostly dark as we passed Grand Turk on our port side. We were making about 8.5 knots (really fast on our boat – 10mph – how fast does your house go?). I loved it! We often listen to audio books or music in the cockpit underway and Fira wanted to hear Coldplay’s “Something Just Like This”. I cranked the music really loud and the wind, speed, and night lights of Grand Turk all combined to make the best, most immersive, unofficial music video ever. We still like the video from Youtube, but I’ll never forget this night.
Since we were making such good time and did not want to mess with the trouble and cost of trying to clear into T&C, we decided to press on until we reached the Dominican Republic. Samana was still not possible, but Puerto Plata in the northwest of the DR was within reach.
The wind kept going and we kept making amazing time. By early afternoon of day four, the wind was getting pretty strong and we were pulling into the port that would be our home for the next month. We pulled into the frightening entrance to the Ocean World Marina and got re-fueled and cleared in to customs and immigration. We decided to stay here since Grete needs to get back to the US to run the Boston Marathon and her mom, Muddah Goose, needs to come visit. Booking flights etc. required some stability and this place seems like a pretty good place to squat for a while.
Pictures below. Clicking them opens the pictures up as a gallery and the captions should be visible.
