Friday, January 21, 2011

SolMate leaves DR for PR on Friday January 21st!

It looks like our weather window has opened up for us to travel onto Puerto Rico.  We will leave Friday night and arrive sometime Sunday afternoon.  I believe it will be about a 230 mile passage (I will have to check w/my Captain).  At any rate, a long couple of days at sea.  But we will be in good company with 5 other boats which always makes it nice.

We had a wonderful time in Luperon exploring wonderful blow holes and getting to know the locals.  We also went and visited Santiago which has over 800,00 people living in this city alone.

So Monday was a big travel day for us to Santiago visiting the “big” city in the hunt to find some fresh stuff. We left a 7am to catch one of two different bus services arriving in Santiago around 10am. Now for some fun street vendors! Aye de oh! We did manage to find a great grocery store and I was able to load up on a bunch of fresh stuff (haven’t seen that in a while). Brandon received a ligament a haircut and was happy as a clam. Tonight he is enjoying a Las Sirenas especial w/fresh limes...cheers Scott.

After all the lugging around food and figuring out transportation back to Luperon we arrived back at our boat around 6pm! Aye ya ya! No doubt different, but happy to explore1 We also had our buddies on Dance Aweigh come over to our boat  twice today to play w/Bella give her love and cookies! Rich sat over on Sol Mate with Bella for almost 2hrs! What a great couple we are blessed.



Brandon's work is never done filling up our water tanks. Even more so with our new clothes washer!



SolMate's newest addition".... A brand new "Cinderalla" washing machine with spin dryer!  It fits in the front head and it only cost $98!  Works like a charm and I am having a ball keeping up with all of our clothes.  Bye, bye to expensive washateria's and paid people (who only lose our clothes)! 

Outside of that big news we have had a wonderful time every night visiting one another's boats for happy hour and amazing food. But we are all ready to move on.  This will be one of the most difficult passages to date for SolMate the Mona Passage is a very tricky crossing and can be unforgiving.  But once we get that behind it should be smooth sailing.  Brandon is busy working away repairing our head sail on the back deck of our boat getting us ready for another big crossing!  Such a talented guy!  Hats off to SolMate's Captain!


 



 
 
 
 
Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and can track us on our spot messenger page.

Until then Aloha and Happy Belated Birthday to VG Evans (knock, knock, knocking on 50's door almost!!!). Miss you Evan's Family!!


Love
SolMate Crew B, C, and Belly Boo














Tuesday, January 11, 2011

SolMate enters the Caribbean- Luperon, Dominican Republic

Hello Friends-


We hope all is well and your New Year has been prosperous so far.

SolMate has been putting on the miles and we are now in Luperon, Dominican Republic.  (As a note, we have put about 6500 miles since we left last year-Savannah to Bahamas to Maine to Bahamas to DR).  We blasted back through the Bahamas this year, leaving Miami on Dec 16 and exiting Mayaguana on January 5th.


We had a great New Years eve, celebrating with our buddy boats- Sabbaticus, Southern Bella and Ultra, in Long Island, Bahamas.

We left there on New Years day and headed up to the north end of Long Island and anchored in Calabash Bay, staging for a departure to head south. We spent two days there, spearfishing, exploring some blue holes inland and generally enjoying some beautiful weather.
Dinner for Two- Fresh Lobstah!!

We left on Jan 3rd at 3am and did a 32 hour passage to Mayaguana, the southeastern most Bahama island. We hung out there for a day, scrounged around for some diesel fuel(not as easy as pulling up to the Chevron station) and got some rest. A couple more of our friends caught up to us in Mayaguana- Dance Aweigh and Magic Inspiration

We then left on Wed the 5th for a two night passage directly to the DR. Normally, one would make a stop in the Turks and Caicos, but due to a good W-NW wind from a front passing through, we left the T&C’s to port and rode a beam reach all the way to Luperon, rolling in on Saturday morning around 10am. While the wind was a real blessing, the seas were quite steep and closely spaced, so we really rolled and wallowed around. It was less than comfortable, but we got it done and are now enjoying an extended stay in Luperon Harbor.

Clearing into the DR at the Commandancia's Office
I must say, this place already feels like home. Having spent much of my childhood in rural Texas towns and on our family ranch only miles from the Mexican border, I am really loving this place. The dirt streets, friendly people and plethora of street food and cheap beer will make it very difficult to leave.

Raising the DR courtesy flag
Many of the folks(mostly old cruisers that came for a week and have stayed for years) that we talk to, all contend that this is the most livable spot in the Caribbean- good people, beautiful land and dirt cheap cost of living. I can’t make that assertion yet, but I am already trying to figure out how to make a home here in the future. More on that later.



Dirt streets in a one-horse town
For now we will explore and immerse ourselves in the Dominican culture, trying not to drink too many El Presidente beers(70 pesos:$2 for a 24oz bottle). Yesterday we went with all our buddy boats- Sabbaticus, Ultra, Southern Bella, Dance Aweigh, Magic Inspiration and Vicarius- on an organized tour into the mountains, where we learned about the soap stone carvers, Dominican coffee and cacao, cigars and several other local crafts.

We finished the day with a trek up into a place called 27 Waterfalls, where we climbed up through canyons and crevasses carved by mountain streams.


Geared up for the waterfalls

The water was chilly and blasting down through the cuts.   Quite exciting and a real workout to get up the falls- especially with Bella in tow.




We ascended through 7 of the falls, taking about an hour.  Then we turned back, getting to slide down and jump off into the pools to get back to the base.


Bella's up for the challenge

 It was amazing, and even Bella met the challenge- she had a great time and was the real rock star of the day. According to our guides, she is "perro primero" (the first dog) to go all the way up the falls.







We will work to keep the stories coming.  (We're committed to blogging again, we may or may not do the blogs to fill in the adventures down the East coast).
Remember- you can track us on our SPOT Satellite Messenger page at:
http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0tgVepGQE8MMKoOWlKFePfycj6Wkf2JrT