Traveling Team Fischer

That title sounds like a failed Harry Potter book, doesn’t it? Still sounds better than: The Dominican Republic and Realizing Our Navigation System Does Not Include Charts For It. Boat life sure keep things interesting. Luckily, we have redundant systems for just about everything, so we switched to our back up, and ordered updated charts for the Garmin.

We have met many sailors on this crazy journey of ours and they each seem to have the same answer when we ask for advice for our chosen route. They recommend we read “Passages South: The Thornless Path to Winward” by Bruce Van Sant. So we downloaded it while still in Turks and Caicos, and ordered a paper copy to add to our overflowing pile of mail at the cousin’s place. We were comforted that the book reinforced practices we had picked up along the way, while also providing great little nuggets to keep us moving forward with as little stress as possible. The latest edition is from 2012, so there is some information regarding safety in some areas that you’d want to research more before booking travel there, but the guidance regarding routes and timing were helpful.

In addition to the things we had been figuring out on our own, his book helped us understand why the early morning hours were better for travel and also provided some understanding of what these online forecasts actually mean.

Our next stop in the DR was Ocean World Marina, where we could fuel up, then try to locate and fix a mystery leak in the engine room. While that was going on, I planned to finish reading Bruce’s book, and since we ended up staying almost a week at this marina, I had plenty of time.

Our dock neighbor was this beautiful old ship that was being restored. It was fun to walk past and see what was new each day. I thought it looked cool, so I have to share a picture of it.

The staff, government officials and other boaters at the marina were fabulous. We felt perfectly safe walking at anytime of day, and I think my favorite was at night, through illuminated paths while listening to the waves crashing on the reefs and breakwater. It was nice to be reminded of why we were doing this trip. Recent stress was trying to erase the good memories we’d already made.

Ocean World Marina is part of a large complex that includes an adventure park, casino, restaurant, sports bar, night club/lounge, and hosts a variety of events. It is an easy walk to a lovely beach, little grocery stores, and more small restaurants. We made some great friends there, and we look forward to seeing them again someday.

When the forecast promised the weather and seas were going to look good for a few days, we left our happy little dock and made our way east. We left early, heading to anchorages Bruce recommended in his book. There were too many fish traps for our comfort to head out before first light, which he seems to like to do, and some of the spots his book recommends were not as comfortable as they could’ve been, due to the direction of the swells, but it was a wonderful journey, and we were constantly in awe of how beautiful the DR is. Sections of the coastline were so lush, they didn’t look real.

It took a few days to make it around the NE point of the island and on to the marina in Samana Bay. Along the way we saw massive cruise ships, dodged a couple squalls, and enjoyed relatively empty anchorages. The plan was to fuel up, do some laundry, and provision at this marina. However, during systems check the morning of our planned departure, we discovered a crack in the exhaust system that was spraying sea water everywhere, so we were faced with a bit of a delay. As is our norm now, plans were adjusted. Happily we had time for a nice breakfast and one more real shower while waiting for the patch job to cure.

There were a couple stops we wanted to make before crossing to Puerto Rico. One where we could anchor overnight on the other side of Samana Bay, and the other is one the Armada does not allow anything more than ‘resting’ . The plan was to rest long enough to start our crossing a few hours before sunrise, so we could have maximum daylight during the trip, while arriving when the sun was still up. Unfortunately, that so called resting spot was so rolly, there was no rest to be had. So we set off for another night crossing (Bleh). On the upside, it was the easiest crossing yet, and sunrise brought us the beautiful view of Puerto Rico on the horizon. Sunrise really is my favorite thing to see from the boat.