Friday, March 31, 1995 - Dominican Republic

What a difference daylight makes! We could now see that we had anchored way out near the entrance to the harbor. I was afraid to go any closer to land in the dark; it looked as if we were practically on it. The wind and waves had calmed down overnight, so we were sitting there quite peacefully. Felt much, much better.
After breakfast, we raised the anchor and motored in closer to land, where we had more protection, and dropped anchor again. We were a little worried, since we had no business being there, not having cleared into the Dominican Republic. There are only three ports on the north coast of the Dominican Republic where you can clear in, and Monte Cristi isn't one of them.
About 10:30, when Roy and I were relaxing in the main cabin, I heard someone calling what sounded like "Hello!" We went up to the cockpit. A leaky wooden motorboat with four men in it was next to the Jofian. One man wore a blue jumpsuit and had a small gun strapped to his waist; we assumed he was the Port Captain. One of the men kept bailing the boat with a coffee can, another sat in the bow, and the fourth did all the talking. Apparently, none of them spoke any English at all, and my limited Spanish was very rusty, but somehow I managed to communicate that we had come from the Bahamas, we were going to Luperon, but the strong wind had blown us off course, so we had ducked into Monte Cristi to rest. I requested permission to remain until the wind died down. We showed them the boat's papers and our passports. They asked if we had any guns, and we assured them we didn't. We promised to leave first thing in the morning, when the wind was calm. Roy gave each of them a Kudo bar. That did the trick. They left with big smiles.
The easterly trade winds blow hard during the day, but diminish at night, so the only way a small boat can move eastward down here is by hiding behind capes and headlands during the day and motoring at night. We have the "Thornless Passage" book by Bruce Van Sant, which tells boaters exactly how to do it, so we're going to take his advice and leave here at midnight for Luperon. During the day, Roy repaired the headsail again, and we both took naps.
This is a pretty place, and we wished we could go ashore. There's a huge, flat-topped rock here, called El Morro de Monte Cristi. We saw it from way out at sea when we were coming in. It provides good protection from the wind.