Luperon, DR
19.54.02N
70.65.913W

Another night of wind and rain. Even with 130' of chain and a 35# kellet, we may have dragged a few feet. It's hard to tell. Particularly when you've been staring at everything for so long, you're certain that you're getting closer it. Still, we certainly didn't have to move again.

Today even though the rain showers were scattered, we would occasionally get gusts of wind up to 24 kts. inside a well protected harbor. I can't imagine what its like outside of here. Needless to say, we spent most of the day on the boat reading and making sure we didn't move.

This evening as things quieted down, we went over to Doc-No-More and discussed strategies. Word has gotten around that we are planning on leaving as soon as there is a weather window. So various boats have approached both Roger & Elaine and Dale & I asking to join us in our journey south. Apparently, other boats who have left Luperon bound for Samana have been targeted by officials forcing them clear customs again when they anchor (regardless of whether they get off the boat or not) and demanding much higher amounts to do so; they even know the boat names so they are getting their information from someone here. Some boats have even skipped the clearing out phase and just went to Puerto Rico without stopping anywhere along the way. We've decided to go ahead and check out but instead of hopping around the island as we had originally planned, go straight to Puerto Rico too. We've even kicked around the idea of using different boat names to hail each other on the radio to keep things confused.

We also decided to take the local buses to Santo Domingo tomorrow. I'm really not crazy about the idea but everyone else thinks that it will be a grand adventure.

We finally ended the day playing dominos again. This time with the guys. Dale ended up winning, Roger grumbled through the whole thing but I think we all enjoyed ourselves.