Still in Luperon, D.R.
We have been delayed and are still in Luperon, D.R. We were all set to go, with a great weather report to make it all the way to Puerto Rico in very light winds on Monday. But our depth sounder chose that moment to go out, after many years of service. We reanchored, Larry dove down on the transducer to see if it was fouled, we did as much trouble shooting as we could, but still no go. We really can't go anywhere without knowing the depth - at least not into unknown harbors. So we put out a call on the VHF, and a neighbor offered an older but working Humminbird to us, and we've been working to jury-rig it so we can get going again. Unfortunately, the weather is now less than favorable, so we will be waiting at least a few more days for better weather. Maybe we'll take the time to explore the countryside a bit. We can always find things to fix on the boat as well. This is a pretty nice place to be "stuck" in.

We have been in Luperon, Dominican Republic for a week now. We can tell that we are in a different country and have left most American- type things behind; people speak Spanish here, the music is all Latin- based (merengue, salsa, etc.), everywhere is an explosion of color, signs, and life. This is a relatively poor country, and it shows in the houses, roads, all of the infra- structure, where the electricity could go out at any time, and the toilets may flush or not. The public bus is a twenty- year- old van that holds about twice its intended capacity. We have made two trips, one on public bus into Puerta Plata, and one in a rented van with seven other cruisers into Santiago for provisioning. Right now we are waiting for the winds to settle down so we can go eastward along the north coast of the D.R. towards Puerto Rico.

From Rum Cay in the Bahamas, we sailed to Mayaguana, and then on to Providen- ciales in the Turks and Caicos Islands. Here I am with all the tools for navigation in the cockpit: chart, GPS, binoculars, autopilot, Sudoku, snacks....

Here's a fish Larry caught on the way to the T&C; it was a barracuda and we let him go.
We didn't spend much time in the Turks and Caicos; we had really good settled weather, and so we kept moving south, and went from French Cay directly to Luperon, Dominican Republic.

From George Town, we sailed over to Long Island, where we spent one night in a lovely anchorage all by ourselves in settled weather. From there we sailed over to Conception Island, where we met up with our friends Tony and Kat on Cheyenne and went snorkeling on the reefs there. Beautiful reef fish, but the reefs were silted over and a bit bleached-looking. Next we sailed down to Rum Cay to stay through some strong south easterly winds and squalls, getting ready for a big hop down to Mayaguana or maybe even to our next country, the Turks and Caicos, if the weather window holds.
Here is a picture of the lovely restored Anglican church on Rum Cay. This is a sleepy little island, with only 100 residents. We were told that the church draws 40 people every Sunday. This island has big plans, however - a huge marina, resort, and hotel complex is under construction, which will no doubt change the nature of the island and area dramatically, not necessarily for the better.
I'll post after we get to the Turks and Caicos, which is about a 48 hour passage from here. It looks like we will be waiting for weather while there too, for about a week, before we sail down to the Dominican Republic.