Stu and Dave 'surfing' in the harbour

Bloody awful is the only way to describe Bryan Habana’s showing at the weekend. His mustache I mean, though his rugby talents weren’t nearly as prominent as that rat hanging below his nose. Add the entire Aussie team in and you’ve got a full display of bad facial hair. November, as I prefer to remember it, capped an excellent year for Irish rugby, played 11, won 10, drew 1. Kel and I listened online at the weekend and then caught the highlights on iPlayer, four seconds at a time. Sadly the internet in Luperon is pretty patchy.

The end of Movember marks a significant milestone for us, our first year on the water! You may have noticed a few updates on the blog recently, some design modifications and the addition of a Google maps image of our trip here, and here. I’ve really enjoying going through our ship’s log, which my captain faithfully completes (up to the BVIs anyhow), reflecting on our progress so far, remembering friends on land and sea along the way. You can check our progress to date, which today is all the way to West Palm Beach. Soon I’ll have got us all the way to Luperon and it’ll be ‘live’ from then on.

We’re grateful for the generosity of others that’s carried us through thus far. We started out with a small, but we thought sufficient amount of money to get through the year, and very quickly realised how expensive this sailing lark can be. Friends and acquaintances have stuck their necks out along the way to help us solve problems with gaffer tape and hose clamps, or just fed us when we were low on morale.

Morale has been a little low of late. Luperon has become a fairly depressing place, and one that we and our friends are keen to get out of. Last time I wrote about the corrupt officials, which is a pain in the ass, but the truly depressing aspects of life here are much more related to sex work and alcohol. Two weeks ago I was sitting in one of the two gringo bars in town, Shaggy’s, and overheard a hideous, and yet so typical conversation. I’ll disguise the names for the sake of confidentiality:

Gregorio was talking with Jimmyorio about the recent visit of his girlfriend’s (read sex worker’s) fourteen year old nephew to Luperon. He came for the weekend, and was excited to visit Luperon as he had never been here, and also to stay on a boat. The three of them were out in a local Dominican bar restaurant where the ladies of the night, and morning and afternoon, meet clients. Gregorio’s girlfriend disappears for a few minutes and comes back with a lady for her nephew and the two of them disappear for the evening. Sentences like “I just had so much respect for her” and “ I mean, imagine if your aunt bought you a piece of ass when you were 14” were among the most notable. Auntie Jacqui did bust out a few tricks that mum doesn’t need to know about, but buying ass was not on the list.

These guys are hanging out on the edge of reality, dying to believe their allure lies anywhere but their wallets. Mum just emailed having returned from Thailand, sorry Padraig Thy-land, and it sounds like a very parallel culture. The girls in town are astute, and sadly realise that the gringos present them with a much more lucrative revenue stream than any jobs in the area. And judging by the physical condition of the average gringo, and the recommended daily alcohol consumption in Luperon, they aren’t troubled too often to maintain their half of the contribution. Quite a few gringos who’ve been in Luperon harbour for more than a season have developed considerable alcohol problems, two I’ve met have severe liver problems and are off booze altogether, its a dead end town for some people, particularly older men.

The most damaging aspect of this gringo intervention is how Dominican men view their women. The prostitution that is essentially encouraged and facilitated by society as money makes its way to the families of the women overtly or through unspoken transactions. At the same time the women are dismissed as whores. It is not uncommon for Dominican men to have multiple girlfriends simultaneously, and to make no effort to hide it, resulting in an instability in relationships that women respond to by putting their wares on display to provide for themselves. Prostitution is perhaps too strong a word for what occurs among Dominicans, but it is certainly trading ass-ets.

Of course I wouldn’t want to comment on all this sexual activity without sampling it myself! Not quite, but a funny occurrence none the less. I’ve had a couple of humorous mix ups with my friend Moreno who works at the factory, one of which occurred recently and was reminded of as we went out to dinner with Yasmin and her family in Las Maras, a few miles outside of Luperon. Moreno and I communicate in pigeon Spanish often, and for a while I really felt like I was making progress. When Moreno invited me to attend his graduation ceremony for the George Washington school of English as he was being presented with a certificate I of course obliged, very happy to be included. I arrived at the prearranged time only to discover that I was actually the equivalent of a prom date for his 15 year old friend. We paraded up the street arm in arm captured on videos and cameras throughout the town, and I got on stage with Yasmin for a photo when she was presented with her certificate.

On Saturday night we were treated to dinner with Yasmin’s extended family from gran to cousins. They were fantastically hospitable, a big spread of pollo, papas fritas, huevos, kayote, berejenas, zanahoria, cerveza, jugo de chinola (check out Google Translate if you’re lost). We were totally stuffed. The whole evening proceeded in limited Spanish, Keli’s capacity being vastly superior to mine, and we took our photo album to show them some images of us from Ireland and Canada. Next year we’ll come back so that I can take Yasmin as my second wife. And sometime shortly after I predict that I will magically become a eunuch.

In a bid to lift the mood in Luperon Dave and I got the surfboard out a few days ago and tried some watersurfing, or is it surfskiing off the back of the dinghy. We had a laugh cruising round the anchorage and waking the boats nearby. It was great to get physical again in the water. I’m sure I’ve mentioned that that water is full of 18,000 people’s excrement on outgoing tides, and just to confirm that there are indeed fertile organisms in there I had a headache for three days and felt like my sinus’ were exploding. Some good bugs got flushed up there when I wiped out. We’ll get out there again though, it made me pine for clear waters again.

Today we celebrated Karmen’s birthday! First mate, cook and Captain Fun on Ellida, Karmen’s been an excellent friend to us since we first met in Georgetown, and pancake breakfast was a good way to usher in the day. Ellida are probably heading out of Luperon a little ahead of us, but we’re really excited about catching them further down the chain. We may indeed coordinate a passage to Hawaii at some stage. It’s not written in to Plan A yet, but in sailing we learn that an alphabet of plans can be overwritten with the slightest change in circumstance.

Dave and Danielle have been performing some heroic feats aboard Beannacht of late. Danielle and Keli have spent many hours in front of the sewing machine working on our dinghy cover and some dresses for Kel. Dave and I checked the alignment of our engine and transmission, and adjusted our PSS drip-less shaft seal. They’re also headed for St Maarten, hopefully ahead of us, and we’re excited about hanging out with them in future.

Muma - the town goat.

So this week we’re changing gear. It’s 25 days till Keli’s birthday, 26 till Christmas, and we’re injecting some urgency into our game. We’ve made some real improvements to the boat while in Luperon, not least by the efforts of Dennis and Pat during their visit, but it’s time to finish the projects that are open and postpone the rest for the New Year. I’ve a little more work to do for Lucas at the factory, but ideally we’ll leave Luperon before Christmas and make our way to St Maarten.

And that’s about it for now.

We’re growing tired of Luperon really. As our friends leave and others make their final preparations we both wish that we could join them in their voyage east. The D.R. has certainly proved an interesting place to hang out, we’ve both enjoyed learning Spanish, eating local foods, and picking up some of the history of the place, especially the Columbus voyages. During Dennis and Pat’s visit we spent three nights in Santo Domingo visiting museums and walking round the Colonial district, soaking in the old stories.

The D.R is also very corrupt, and we’ve become increasing weary navigating the various interactions with officials, all attempting to extract a few dollars from our limitless bank account (ha)! On route to the waterfalls in Imbert with Dennis and Pat we were stopped at a police checkpoint. I showed them all the papers they required, licence and insurance, and then was asked for a donation because the police are poor you know. These checkpoints increase in frequency towards the end of each month as their coffers empty before payday.

Luperon in particular is grating because the local officials have become expert at screwing money out of the boats at anchor. At the minute we’re visited about once a week for a reminder that we owe them harbour fees, which no one can really confirm are legitimate, and any time Kel has to deal with them for immigration or boat related issues they’re always asking for a little extra ‘tip’. We’re holding out for now, but I imagine that can’t last forever.

Sadly the yachties themselves have contributed to establishing this extortion culture.  Cruisers on bigger budgets than ours tip $20 for very small services,  creating the belief that anyone who arrives on a boat has such surplus cash.

In the last few weeks Kel and I have been coming to terms with the sad realisation that we will be leaving Luperon to go find work somewhere else as we haven’t managed to save what we needed to continue cruising next season. It’s unfortunate in that whilst we’re of course not fantastic with money, we did actually arrive here with a plan, and the plan was scuppered by other people rather than us. Firstly Kel got screwed on her delivery job and was only paid 50%, and then the guy I’m working for ran out of money and cut my job by 30%. This happened after we had spent the money we budgeted to do the upgrades on the boat.  So we’re learning, and we’re hacked off at the same time. We haven’t decided where to go for work yet, but it’s likely that we’ll head east from here as the work is where the tourists are.

It has been fantastic to spend some money on the boat though! We bought a new ham radio to enable us to communicate with other boats, and other geeks, over long distance. Last night I hooked it up for the first time and managed to make contact with a ham net in Texas, by this calculation that’s about 1500 miles – who am the best?

We bought an Air X wind generator from Dave and Danielle. We first met them when we got back from the Virgins, but in the last 6 weeks we’ve become really close. Dave has been at sea for about 40 years, delivering boats, running charter companies, as a dive instructor, running a salvage company.. he’s got a lot of energy! Danielle went back to school a few years ago to become a chef and now works on yachts. We’ve spent quite a few nights up late playing cards and laughing.

Rugby intermission…we’ll be back.

Trellis Bay full moon party

A typical Sunday morning today, if we were living in Belfast. Well not quite, but it had a few of the ‘typical’ things about it… woke up to a screaming cat telling me it was time to feed him at 5, 6 and 7am. Got into the kitchen and put the kettle on for some Suki tea (courtesy of Tom and Hazel). Opened up the Observer (courtesy of Willow) and spent the morning reading the review and sport sections cover to cover. Lovely.

We motor sailed up to Virgin Gorda Sound yesterday lunchtime to enjoy a few days of holiday before we up anchor and make the thankfully downwind passage back to Luperon. Last week we got an email from our friend Luc in Luperon with not one but two job offers for the pair of us. Amazing, we feel very blessed by Luc’s vision and trust in us, he’s a champ. I’m going spend some time working with him in his catamaran business and Kel is hopefully going to deliver a boat from Panama to New York for a friend of Luc. We’re both over the moon, both to have some income possibilities in the next few months, but also to be back with our friends on Ellida, Sarabande and Gaia. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of mischief to be had while we sit out the hurricane season and top up the kitty.

Aren't we hot? Maybe it's just the fire.

Our last few days with mum and dad were fun. Dad got a touch of sailing close to the wind with a beat from Sopers Hole up to Great Cane Bay. Reminded him of dinghy sailing, it was fun to heel Beannacht over and stretch the sails a little. Our last night was the monthly full moon party in Trellis Bay. A local artist’s studio lights huge fireballs in the water, and people dance, drink and shop by the beachfront. Trellis Bay seems to be nothing but a tourist trap, a Granville Island or Portstewart kind of place, but the party was a fun night out. Mullans senior didn’t get naked, at least not to my knowledge, but team Mullington managed a couple of skinny missions off the boat.

Came out of a can, but still tasted pretty fine! My first Guinness in quite a while.

The BVIs continue to be very relaxing, and very expensive. We had a plate of wings, a Guinness and a Caribe (local beer) for $26 last night in a marina bar on shore. Wowsa, way to kill the cruising budget. So we’ve enjoyed time on the boat, and swimming off it, and getting through the mountain of magazines that T&H left with us. In one week I’ve read two copies of Bike and a copy of Motorcycle News – heaven! We like guests. Especially those who arrive bearing wonderful gifts, as well as stories of how things are at home. Our good friend Andrew Iverson is also coming out this month, he’s flying to DR to meet us for a week or two which we’re very excited about.

Anzuelo had such a good time with Tom he wanted to fly home in his luggage!

I logged onto the web last night to get a catch-up on things in Belfast, given that today is the 12^th July, but it sounds like all was calm. Still owning a house in the Village does cause partial anxiety during the 12^th fortnight, not helped by the racist incidents that were happening in Belfast a couple of weeks ago. Sounds like Esther Ranson made some very helpful and insightful comments about the whole thing on TV though, those teeth alone should give us all cause to consider selective (compulsory) euthanasia.

Snorkelling in the BVIs has been incredible. It’s hatching season and schools of fish are everywhere. This morning our paper reading was interrupted by a feeding frenzy right underneath our boat. A school of juvenile jacks were dashing and darting through a cloud of literally thousands of young scamps that can’t have been a few weeks old. The prey became airbourne swarms for a moment before crashing back into the turbulent water. Gulls flocked to the scene swooping to gobble up unwitting fish that were too distracted by the threat below to notice the aerial assault.

This Friday is our 5^th wedding anniversary. It’s hard to take in actually; we’ve both been laughing about how time moves quickly, and how lucky we feel to be out here already after such a short time of ‘working’ life together. We might be in the middle of our crossing to DR on Friday, but we’re going to take ourselves out for some grub to celebrate at some stage during the week.

It’s time to get back in the water…tough life. We’ve been concentrating on scrubbing our bottom this week – just one bottom belonging to Beannacht, not three – in preparation for our departure, getting rid of all the nasty cling-ons that slow our progress.

It felt like survival out there. Leaving Luperon was really hard. In our last few days there Gaia and Sarabande had arrived in the anchorage, and for a few days the 8 of us, including Tom and Karmen, hung out loads and swapped tales of our various trips since we were together in Turks and Caicos. Doubt about the way forward has been gathering in Kel and my minds since we arrived in Luperon as we worked out how little funds we have left and kicked around ideas for work in the next few months.

To top that off we met Luc and Andresa. Luc is a French catamaran builder who arrived in Luperon 14 years ago on a trimaran he built himself in Brazil. Sadly Andresa moved to France with their two daughters during our first week here, but we would love to spend a season relaxing with Luc.

Suffice to say leaving Luperon was a hard decision, and I think we only actually left because we’re meeting mum and dad in Tobago at the end of June.

Pulling out of the anchorage at 6pm on Monday we both felt there were some ominous signs. Chris Parker, our weather over SSB radio guy, had been struck by lightning on Saturday night and was out of action until Wednesday, so we’d only a 2-day-old forecast to work with from him. Added to that Bruce Van Sant, the author of what has become our favourite sailing reference book ‘The Thornless Path to Passages South’ was out of town on Sunday morning and didn’t do his usual forecast.

It was hard to decide whether it was only the sad feelings about leaving friends, but after the first hour or so both of us were in low spirits and weren’t enjoying the conditions. The winds were scheduled to be 7-13 knots, with 3 to 5 foot seas but already the winds were significantly higher and with an easterly swell to motor into we were only making 5 knots or so.

Aside from making slow speed the first night went as expected. Hugging the Dominican coastline we gained some protection from the night lee and at noon on Tuesday we were pulling into a sheltered anchorage at the eastern tip of the north side of the island where we jumped in for a quick wash and made some food for that evening’s passage. And that’s when things started to break down a little.

When I went forward to drop the anchor I realised that the pin that locks the anchor to the deck fitting had been bent by the force of waves crashing over the bow. I deployed our secondary anchor and then got working on removing the pin. I lashed the anchor to the deck with rope and thought nothing more of it. At about 5pm I was down below making dinner and Kel was at the helm just rounding the cape before we headed south down the eastern coast and crossed the Mona Passage. Kel shouted for me and as I ran up on deck I realised that she’d heard the anchor break lose and that we were in the process of losing 300 ft of chain and a very expensive 45lb anchor in the middle of the ocean.

Fortunately the chain jammed in the locker door about 200ft out and with some quick thinking and two pairs of bruised hands we managed to get a halyard onto it to prevent any more from heading over the edge. We were both amazed by how heavy the anchor and chain were in rough seas, the load increasing dramatically as the bow oscillated with each wave. It was obvious we were not going to pull this in by hand and would need to setup a winching system.

Thinking on the fly we rigged a system where we could tie a line onto the chain at the bow roller, lead it though a block on the toe rail at the shrouds to our largest cockpit winch. With one of us winching and the other tailing we could bring in about 20 feet of chain at a time. It took us over an hour to get the anchor back above the water and on deck. Shattered and emotionally downtrodden we decided we would continue down the coastline in the night lee before heading out to see at first light on Wednesday morning, at this stage we’d motorsailed for over 24 hours and only made about 100 miles.

The winds helped us out through the night and we both felt fairly good about the Mona, a difficult passage that causes problems for boats of all sizes in the wrong conditions. But when we tacked north east to head out to sea the winds died and we realised that we weren’t going to manage to sail across and thus would eat into our limited fuel much earlier in the journey.

It has to be said at this point that my maths really isn’t as strong as I think it is. We’d bought additional diesel cans in DR increasing our capacity to 55 gallons, and knew that our engine uses about a gallon an hour, thus we could motor for 55 hours. Our normal motoring speed is about 6.5 knots, and so we had a tank range of about 360 miles, which for a passage of 370 miles seemed fine. What we hadn’t considered was that (a) our boat speed would be much closer to 4 knots, and (b) whilst the journey was 370 miles in a straight line, the conditions would require us to tack back and forth along the coastline, increasing our distance travelled.

We stopped the engine for 10 minutes at 9am on Wednesday to review the charts and discuss our options. With only 35 gallons of fuel onboard and making about 4 knots we could motor for 140 miles in a straight line, certainly enough to cross the 70 mile Mona, but nowhere near enough to make it to the BVIs, and our intended landfall of Tortola. The sea conditions were perfect for the passage though, and if we turned back to refuel could we guarantee that we would be able to cross tomorrow? We couldn’t, and so opted to press on and decided that should the wind fail to kick in we would contact the US Coastguard and request permission to take on fuel at the other side. By tea time that night we’d made about 70 miles to the north east, and were more than halfway across the Mona.

Through the night we tacked again and were really fighting to sail at any angle with an easterly component, in the early stages only managing about 170º, although during the day this improved to about 140º. At 11am, about 15 miles off the Puerto Rican coast we radioed the Coastguard and requested permission to motor to San Juan for fuel. Thankfully they were sympathetic and we switched on the engine and motored along the coastline the remaining 65 miles.

Again we made much less progress than expected, at despite a projected arrival of 8pm we pulled up to San Juan Bay Marina at 11pm to be met by two US Customs and Border officials.

 

(heading out to sea for St Thomas, but I’ll finish this tomorrow.)

We arrived in Dominican Republic knackered having fled the scene of crimes against humanity in Haiti late in the evening. We dropped the anchor in a bay north of Manzanillo before getting down to some much-needed sleep. On Thursday morning we motored down to the dock at Manzanillo to check in and get started on our Spanish. It’s funny having spent two weeks in Haiti speaking French how hard it is to replace ‘merci’ with ‘gracias’.

We’ve read a fair bit on DR and were aware that one of the things we’d have to watch was officials trying to extort little tips here and there from us as we made our way across the north coast, stopping in Luperon for a while and then heading east to Puerto Rico. We’d bought a case of beer in Turks and Caicos with which to ‘tip’ the officials without having to hand over cash. Arriving in Manzanillo was our first test.

We anchored off the dock at 8am and prepared our paperwork to go ashore to meet with immigration. As we were anchoring we were hailed on the VHF and some arm waving from the pier explained that we needed to move the boat to the other side of the pier and tie up beside a Navy boat. The pier was a tall concrete construction designed for tankers so there was no way we could tie to it directly.

Once secured we were boarded by five officials and a translator who talked us through the process. I’m not sure what the average is, but five officials per vessel must be close to it for DR. At the end of a simple process the translator said that the immigration official wanted a tip of $20 for not throwing things around our boat during the search – ha! We explained that we didn’t have very much money but we would happily give them a beer each and hey presto the problem went away. Of course the economists amongst you would realise that bottles of Corona are $2 each and so this little event cost us $10 anyway. But we feel it’s the principle of the thing, just because we own a boat doesn’t mean we’re loaded, and the immigration officials are paid to do their job, it’s not our duty to tip them every time. In making two more stops on the way to Luperon last week we managed to avoid most of these little ‘fees’.  

Once cleared by immigration we moved the boat out to anchor and then went ashore to find some diesel for the boat. The translator had offered to help us out so I asked him to get a price for diesel while we anchored and I’d meet him ashore. When I got ashore I was greeted by the translator and one of his buddies and told fuel was $4 a gallon – too expensive. I declined their offer and then met a Dominican called Moreno and his English wife Susan. Moreno invited us for a beer and I collected Kel from the boat and we enjoyed a nice beer ashore and got the scoop on the locals from Moreno and Susan.

Throughout the day our relationship with these two developed in slightly comical fashion. Susan talked to us about the Domincan ways, they’re highly skilled scammers and can sniff out an easy tourist from a mile off, we should stick with Susan and she’d help us out. Moreno however we discovered was a skilled Dominican scammer who happened to be married to an English wife, to throw us off the scent! I wanted to give the translator $5 for his help because Kel and I felt he had been very helpful and he didn’t get paid by immigration. Moreno agreed to give him cash because I didn’t have any on me and gave him 100 pesos. When I got ashore I gave Moreno $5 for the 100 pesos only to discover later that $5 is actually 175 pesos! At the end of the day we wanted to give Moreno and Susan a gift because they’d been very helpful and were trying to start a business servicing visiting yachts. I gave Moreno $10 to which he responded by asking for more sighting the beer earlier in the day, I reluctantly gave him $5 more despite the fact that he’d invited us for beers and that beers only cost $2.50! At the end of the day Kel and I worked out that we’d bought Moreno a 50 peso phone card, given him $15, a further 50 pesos for gas in his moped on which he collected 10 gallons of diesel for us at the accurate price. This guy had seen us coming! Despite feeling slightly scammed Moreno and Susan did invite us into their home for coffee and dinner, and so at the end of the day I gave them a little feedback on how the day had went. Not sure if it made any difference, but Kel and I at least felt we could leave with a clean conscience having made peace with our $15 and 100 pesos investment in their business venture!

Leaving Manzanillo was also a little drama. I went to the Naval port office, the Comandanzia, to get a Despatchio that would allow us to exit the port and arrive in Luperon. Kel and I were planning to leave at 5am the next morning. The officer explained that the weather was bad and that he would not grant us permission to leave. I was amazed. He claimed that it in DR law he was responsible for our safety and thus could not grant us an exit unless the weather was good. Ridiculous, just another attempt to extract money from us I thought. I returned to the boat dejected and explained to Kel that they wouldn’t give us the paper. The winds pick up very strongly by 9am as the night-lee effect of the island (I’ll provide a definition later) wears off. We were both worried that leaving later than 5am would mean that we couldn’t get into our next anchorage before the winds arrived. 

The next morning we went to the dock at 6.30 which neatly coincided with the arrival of the banana boat from England – the boat that collects bananas, rather than a large inflatable that working class kids in Northern Ireland spent too much time on each summer. Our dispatchio was delivered without any fees and we were shooed off the dock to make space for the freighter – another lesson learned, always time your departure with the arrival of a large freighter that keeps immigration busy!

We’re now in Luperon and haven’t managed to write anything for over a week for the simple reason that we’ve been having too much fun socialising with Tom and Karmen from Ellyda. We first met Tom and Karmen in Georgetown and were really excited about meeting up again, it’s the first time this has happened on the trip and it’s been wonderful to have familiar relationships after two weeks of daily change in Haiti.

Luperon is one of the best hurricane holes in the eastern Caribbean and many of the boats here, including Ellyda, are here to weather the season until November before travelling south to the Windward and Leeward Islands next winter. Tom and Karmen have been doing their best to encourage us to stay for the season also, but so far we’re resisting the temptation, not least because the water is so dirty here we can’t swim off the boat, surely one of the most important aspects of living on the water. Kel also commented today that I’m losing my tan because we’ve spent so little time in the sun during the last month – I’m returning to a life of vitamin D deficiency.

Sailing from Luperon to Puerto Rico requires us to cross the Mona Passage, one of the most challenging passages of water in the northern Caribbean. We’ve been in Luperon for one week already and there’s no sign of a weather window to move east. So we’ve been capitalising on free time with daytrips to both Puerto Plata and Santiago, and some boat maintenance projects.

On the way from Manzanillo we stopped at Puerto Rocia to shelter from the weather and I decided that was the time to change the fuel filters. I should have done this months ago but had been procrastinating. The primary Racor filter was really straightforward and the engine fired up immediately after the change and ran for over 10 minutes before I shut it off. Getting air in the fuel line is a big problem in diesels and an inevitable part of filter changes, to manage a change without having to bleed the engine is a big plus. The secondary filter is mounted on the engine and is more difficult to change; in fact this one defeated me for about 24 hours. I fitted and refitted the filter three times before I could get the fuel lines to bleed successfully, forcing us to stay at anchor for another night. The relief when the engine finally fired up and ran on the third attempt, 18 hours later, was immense. We’ve also emptied and flushed the water bladders and the fuel tank, scrubbed the desks and fitted a new alternator this week so I’m feeling pretty zen.

Last week we instigated cleaning days on the boat for the first time. Tuesday and Friday mornings are cleaning mornings when we give the boat a once over and keep up with the general maintenance tasks. It can be really difficult to give time to cleaning when there’s so much nice stuff to be busy with off the boat like sandy beaches and interesting new cities, so the captain has initiated structure to our lives and so far I like it.

It’s Taco night tonight on Beannacht so I’m off to enjoy great grub prepared by Keli and Karmen. It’s a hard life this.

Thursday 30th April

One of the many ruins of forts protecting the entrance to Fort Liberte

Unfortunately on Wednesday Haiti picked up a blot on her report card, and the scene of the crimes against these fine specimens of humanity was Fort Liberte.

We got up early and left Labadie at first light to make the 18-mile motor-sail east to Fort Liberte to pick up a clearance to exit Haiti that would allow us to enter Dominican Republic on Thursday. The port of Fort Liberte is in an excellent hurricane hole, a deep wide bay with a narrow entrance channel, and the entrance is lined with the ruins of several forts. We arrived at noon just as the wind and waves were starting to pick up, and anchored off the UN’s expansive port complex. A UN skiff met us as we entered the bay to check that we were ok, and one of their officers ashore hailed us on the radio to establish our needs and then offered us the use of their landing ramp for our dinghy. Perhaps we should have read the signals.

The weekly banana boat arriving in Manzanillo to collect another shipment. We made a speedy getaway lest we get run over by the mamma.

Once the anchor was down the first task on the list was to drop the dinghy back in the water as we had stowed it on the bow for the passage. We’ve done this several times, but it’s not yet a slick operation mainly because our winches on the boat are undersized. We clip a spinnaker halyard onto the bow ring of the rib, hoist it in the air to lift the stern up over the lifelines and then gently drop it upside down on the bow. Removing it is the reverse process.

Kel's rope-burned hand after a fight with the halyard hoisting our dinghy

On this occasion I had taken the halyard back to one of our larger cockpit winches to get better leverage, and once of the stern was over the lifelines Kel went back to drop it in the water. At this moment she had a little brain fart and opened the clutch on the line without securing it on the smaller cabintop winch – a fart aided by my new technique of using the cockpit winch which didn’t have enough line wraps to be used for slipping.  Clutches are one-way breaks that allow us to let go of lines as we’re winching them in without the line slipping back. As she let the clutch go the line took off towards the mast burning its way thought Kel’s grip in the process. In a fit of insane bravery Kel closed her grip on the rope again to try and protect me – on the other end of the line holding the dinghy – and got a really bad burn across all four fingers of her left hand. A poor start to our afternoon.

ton first tuna, a Bonite, caught on our trolling line outside Monte Cristi, D.R.

We busted into some first aid boxes to ease Kel’s pain and check that her wounds were not fatal, before fixing a few snacks for lunch. Jokes gradually returned to our conversation after an appropriate time of mourning. It’s actually our first real injury on the boat so far, and we’re grateful it was a minor event, although deserved of much sympathy.

At 2pm I got into the dinghy and headed to shore with our ships papers and passports hoping to engineer a quick clearance and acquire exit documents. En route to the UN slip a few locals called me over to the town pier, a tall concrete monster that wasn’t really for landing a dinghy. I was met by a local ‘translator’ in a cowboy hat and a few officials. Taking one look at my dinghy rolling around in the swell the officials decided they did not need to visit our boat today, but did send me back to get Kel so that we could clear immigration ashore. I duly returned with my wife and we walked to the end of the pier where they assembled to look at the foreigners.

There were 14 people standing around us at this point. Two Haitian police officers, two UN police officers, two UN soldiers from the peace keeping naval base next door, four Haitian immigration officers, three young Haitians which included the Gareth Brooks wannabe, and the guy that held the keys to the compound that housed the pier. There was obvious tension between the UN and the locals who seemed to resent their presence, and some of the UN officials didn’t help themselves by openly talking about the locals in derogatory tones and posturing, but in the moment we couldn’t do anything about that.

The conversation started well, the Chief police officer for the area was very pleasant and began by taking our passports and noting our details. The UN police followed by duplicating everything the Haitian had recorded, although I never fully understood why. The UN soldiers took me aside a few times and warned that Fort Liberte was not particularly safe and that we should be careful sleeping on the boat tonight. Not something that was a big surprise as we’d both felt tinges of concern as we’d stood on the pier for these first few minutes and looked at the shoreline with its many small boats just a few hundred meters from us, but we would take the normal precautions like stowing any valuables out of sight and sleeping with one ear open.

The day’s events then evolved into a multiple good cop bad cop storyline. Chief of police (good) continued to be very helpful and curious as to our arrival in his town. Deputy chief (bad) not so warm. Immigration lady one (good) polite, smiling and pleasant. Immigration lady two (bad) upset that she was born with a full beard and tash and was overheard by Kel to say “don’t tell that to the whites” and was often found with a frown on her face, stubble twitching accordingly. Immigration man one (bad) walked around the circle adding little comments (in Creole/French of course, which I must say I have developed something of an ear for) that questioned our documents or our intentions. Immigration man two (good) who for now was in the background but will play a starring role later. And of course Gareth Brooks (scam artist) and his two young stooges who seemed somewhat out of place, but tagged along for the ride unchallenged.

Stu proudly displaying our sewing handywork - a homemade D.R. courtesy flag

So we’re transported to the immigration office to complete our paperwork. It’s a small simple building with no lighting and one table in a office to which we’re shown in. The immigration ladies get busy with date stamps and exit papers while Gareth Brooks begins to probe about how much we had to pay in Cap Haitien for immigration fees. Kel working in her excellent French is dodging the question adeptly, and Gareth segways into a conversation about his Canadian friend Roger (read child sponsor with good motives and poor information) who sends him money whenever he needs it, and shows us some Venezuelan currency that he would like us to change into US dollars if we could.

Finally the story moves to its conclusion. Kel is handed back our passports with exit documents, but is then asked to pay the immigration fee, an as yet undecided amount that is taking shape through whispers and non-verbals around the room. We have a quick mumble in inperceptable English and decide that we’re not prepared to pay a bribe, we haven’t had to yet on the journey and think that it’s the best policy – one bribe leads to another, and one cruiser paying bribes leads to more cruisers being bribed. Our decision is that we will resist and if necessary stay on the boat without clearing immigration and move on in the morning. International law allows you to take shelter from weather as long as you stay on the boat and don’t go ashore.

Gareth keeps up his line of enquiry on the Cap Haitien fee while Frida Callo, good immigration lady and bad immigration man discuss possible fees. $50 each… $50 total… $20 each… Kel just keeps her head and asks politely to see documentation that outlines a fee structure and evidence that a receipt will be issued for our payment, which of course it wouldn’t. After about 15 minutes of dead ends, during which bad cop arrives to insist that we have to pay the fee and bad immigration choruses that we will be arrested if we don’t have our papers when we leave the office, we hand back our exit papers and walk out.

Arriving in Luperon after five days of early morning commutes across D.R. and Haiti.

We smile to good cop who gives us directions back to the dinghy and say goodbye. We’re then are chased down by bad cop who asks to see our papers, funny how this little racket operates. The 11-member chorus in this musical stand on the porch of the immigration office adding their refrains of ‘arrest them’ and ‘they’re fugitives’. Kel explains to bad cop that we were not prepared to pay a fee that was openly cooked up in the heads of the immigration officials and that would not be documented in any way. Bad cop says we must have our paperwork. Kel says that international law allows us to take shelter on the boat and that we will not be returning to land. Bad cop protests and insists we cough up some dollars.

And in a final moment of very intense and only comedic after the fact drama Kel says to bad cop, who is standing on a kerb towering over us, ‘you’re robbing us’. Bad cop is stiff as a board, both fists clenched, arms tense and by his side, eyes bulging from his scull. “What did you say to me? What did you say to me?” Kel momentarily doubted her French, the verb for robbed is very similar to the verb for raped, but stood her ground. She then continued to state her case as she had before, but bad cop was summonsed by good cop from his truck and left the scene.

A moment later good immigration man stepped up much like Babyface at the conclusion to Busgy Malone to win the hearts of the audience with one final act of ultimate good – although I’m second-guessing my memory now that I’m more acquainted with the myth of redemptive violence theory, I think Babyface wields a baseball bat? He is called to the truck by good cop and then walks over to us to inform us that we’re free to go.

Our security guard protecting our dinghy while we had dinner ashore in Manzanillo, Dominican Republic.

We walk back to the dinghy rehashing the scene together and feeling ultimately happy to have resisted a bribe, and sad for Haiti as this was a sour end to what has been a wonderful two weeks. Gareth Brooks followed us to the dinghy warning that we were illegal and are scheduled for arrest, but after a quick chat with the UN to inform them of the afternoon’s events we jump back onto Beannacht and set sail for D.R. Without exit papers, and motoring into 10 foot seas at the mouth of the entrance to the bay, we made the 2 hour passage to a sheltered anchorage north of Manzanillo and had a nice warm soapy wash in the cockpit before heading to bed. Immigration in Mazanillo would await the next morning, and we’d learn if our gamble had paid off, or whether we were simply exchanging one bribe for another.