Luperon, Dominican Republic
 

Ships Log Entry 54 

1-2-12 to 2-15-12

John got a call on Monday the day after New Years that his lock for the companionway doors was in and ready for pick-up. He went the next day to Puerto Plata by guagua (local bus that seats 12-14). While he was there he did Carol a favor and stopped at the beach to collect some sea glass for jewelry projects down the road.

Friday the 5th of January was a big day for John. Now we would see if his project of making his new companionway doors fit on the boat and just what they would look like. He put them on and decided he had to redo one because of too much gap. It was back to working on the new doors again. John finally finished his project which took one month to the day of the break-in. This was with the locks installed, varnished and doors properly fitted.

 

 

They look great and in fact they look better than the old ones.

 

On Thursday, January 19th we went to the Puerto Blanco Marina for pick-up to go to Derek and Esther Lewis’s new house warming party somewhere in the mountains near Santiago, Dominican Republic. They are cruisers who we knew from Luperon when we were here in 2008.

 

 

   

We rode over by taxi with another cruiser, S/V Moonlight – Gerta & Andrei, South Africans. They had bought their sailboat in the United States and are now enjoying the cruising life. The party was complete with band and Dominican food.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were over a hundred people there and everyone looked they had a great time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They have a house that they had built with two apartments – one up and one down. A spectacular view was seen from the rear of their house to the adjacent valley and mountains.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It seems the break-ins in Luperon have not stopped. On Saturday, January 21st, Jeanette from S/V Sea Lion who is renting a house (Sugar Creek) up on Gringo Hill got robbed. During the night three ski masked robbers, who they later found out were Haitians, came in through an open window and gagged and tied her up. Before they got her gagged she let out one loud yell that the neighbors, Fred & Margie heard and came to investigate. They called her name and shone a light on her house but couldn’t see anything. So they went to the front of the house and the door was standing wide open. As Fred was going in the front door one of the robbers was coming out carrying a computer and Fred tackled him. The robber dropped the computer and started fighting to get away. The robbers had pulled all the electric wires out and this is what they bound Jeanette with. They cut strips of fabric with a knife out of the bed covers to finish tying her up and gagging her. It seems they got away with most of her good jewelry and some money. After they left Fred went down to the police to report what happened. They found out later one of the robbers had a sister living in Luperon but so far they haven’t apprehended them.

 

During the next week two earthquakes were felt centered near Cabarete which is east of Puerto Plata. They registered 5.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale but caused no damage. Cabarete is approximately forty miles from where we were in Luperon. Hopefully we won’t be here if a big one comes like it did in Haiti a few years ago. Haiti is on the same island as the Dominican Republic which is called Hispaniola .

Carol with John’s help has been working on redoing all the zippers on the dodger, steering station cover on helm and the mainsail cover. The dodger was the hardest because you had to go through not only canvas but the flexiclear plastic. Since room was a big problem on the boat you needed two people to guide the fabric through the sewing machine. One person had to sew and the other person had to hold it straight. I’m sure glad that project is finally finished.

The next week we were in one of our local haunts, JR’s which is in the town and saw a native carrying a huge bowl on her head. I just had to take a picture of this. I have seen this before but never got a picture.

 

One day we couldn’t log on to the internet so John had to go into town to see why. He said the whole town was shut down.  He said the people were protesting because they weren’t getting new blacktopped streets. They were burning tires on the one new street that they had, which didn’t make any since to me. I remember when we were here before they were protesting not getting much electricity and they were ripping out and smashing their electric meters. To this day in Luperon, they only get about three to four hours worth of electricity per day. The stores have to rely on gas generators to operate their businesses.

Every Sunday that we go over to Puerto Blanco Marina for their weekly BBQ the local children are out sailing they dinghies. They are towed out from the Marina to the place where they race in the harbor.

 

 

The children are very talented and it was interesting to watch them.

 
Stay tuned for more adventures from John & Carol aboard the S/V Sweet Caroline