Luperon at Last
We agreed with our friends on Wildly Intrepid to leave at 2pm from Big Sand Cay. I was delighted to have a buddy boat for this leg – we had really built it up in our minds as a challenging 80 mile passage, and so having others go at the same time reinforced that we were making the right decision with the weather window. Island Home left the previous night at 9.30 and had arrived at 11 that morning, and the French boat left at 5am. So, it was now our turn.
Michael pulled up the anchor again by hand – perhaps for the last time – Luperon has mooring balls and we had arranged for Domingo to meet us in the morning and take us directly to a ball, to avoid another anchoring. Wildly Intrepid was off first and slowed down a bit so we could catch them once we got the anchor up. Gorgeous day, with forecasted 15-20kn on our beam, which made the first 6 hours fast and fun. Our top speed was 8.4 knots – our new boat record under sail. The seas were 5ft waves and 8 seconds apart, with our angle of sailing on a beam reach made a roller coaster feeling that was fun and not scary. We had 1 reef in the main and the genoa. Michael and Corey chatted on the VHF and we pulled alongside to get action shots of each other sailing. We ate tuna on crackers, then some pasta for dinner I had prepped, and were soon getting ready for bed. Both kids wanted to sleep on deck and Michael was feeling energetic so I went down to Flo’s bed at 10.30 and took the first sleep.
At around 12.30, I got up and checked how we were doing. The winds had calmed a bit but we were essentially still on the same tack and all was well. The only issue was a set of flashing red lights, all in sequence that spread out quite far. Were they a fishing net? Best to steer clear. So with the change of helm, Michael went down and I was determined not to run into that net!
We only had about 20 miles to go, the wind had really slowed to 10ish knots. Dominican Republic has the highest mountains in the Caribbean and has a resulting night lee where the wind from the land counter acts the trade winds and creates a calm until about 9am, that can stretch up to 30 miles offshore. We had read about it a lot, so it was really cool to see it in practice. You can literally smell the land long before you can see it – coffee, fires, earthy smells. I kept us on course and we were doing 3 knots on average. More lights started to show up and its really hard at night to distinguish what they are! Corey came back on the VHF – he thought the red lights were actually on land? I laughed and relaxed a bit, I could stop worrying about avoiding them!
Michael was back up at 3.30 and we were getting within 10 miles now. The wind was dying for us so we started to think about turning on the engine. As the sky became more light, we saw that the ‘red fishing net’ was actually a windfarm on land – the lights were for aircraft. Would have saved me some stress to know that but what can you do. We were really happy with how far we had sailed, really great conditions. We were almost in Luperon! Unbelievable!
Corey and Wildly Intrepid were planning to anchor so they kept going into the harbour. We took our time and then contacted Domingo. He agreed to meet us at 6.30am and lead us in to our ball. We got tied up in a nice spot close to the Marina and beside the mangroves. There were at least 100 boats packed into the small harbour. We learned later that this is actually not a lot of boats, that it was a slower year! We were so elated to have made it. Michael and I went for a nap to celebrate 😊
It’s been now 1 week since we arrived here. It’s a cruiser’s mecca. Luperon is a small town, in the developing world that is really happy to have a great community of cruisers. There are daily events to join from dinners, pool parties, yoga, and all the services have a coordinater. There is the egg lady, the yogurt lady, laundry services, water and hull scraping. All the prices are really low compared to Bahamas etc. We have eaten out many times, because its our first week we tell ourselves, and have met many wonderful people.
Above all, its so great to have cruising friends to share it with! We celebrated Christian’s 13th birthday, and met up with the 3 boats we have travelled with, for burgers at the best burger spot in town, and then had our Wildly Intrepid crew over for dinner/cake (we made Nutella crepes to cover the bases of both dinner and desert due to our lack of oven!). We have been eating non-stop fresh fruits and salads, and were treated to a feast by Papo’s wife, when Michael bought our new backup anchor off him. It feels so wonderful to be immediately welcomed into a community again after being off on our own for the last few months. Sailors are the best. We intend to stay here for hurricane season, so that means 4 months to get to know Luperon and the Dominican Republic!
