Wednesday, March 11, 2020

Ocean World, Dominican Republic
19.49.685N
70.43.853W

Today we were able to hear our weather guru perfectly although Dale said that it didn’t sound like things had changed too much from yesterday.  The one thing that did set Dale’s heart a twitter, was that when someone in Luperon (the next harbor down) asked about a transit to Puerto Rico during the Thursday-Saturday time frame, they were told that it was definitely “doable”.  Best news we’ve heard in a long time as Chris (the weather guru) has a reputation for being a bit of a pessimist and overly cautious. 

As the next brainstorming session was scheduled for 9am up at the marina lobby, I decided to clean the rust off the boat and walk in with Dale so that I could take a leisurely shower while he was kanoodling with the boys.  While waiting for me to finish, Dale struck up a conversation with the crew of the huge motor yacht next to us.  He learned that they had intended to leave today for the Bahamas only to learn that the port is closed to both incoming and outgoing traffic due to the waves breaking at the harbor entrance.  Wow!  News to us. 

So while I was washing my hair with lots of marina water and using the forbidden hairdryer, the guys decided that the various weather sources were coming together on a consensus of opinion and that it might be a “doable” trip.  The Plan B is that if things get too sporty, we’ll pull into Samana at the other end of the Dominican Republic and wait until we can cross the Mona.  At that point its just a day trip across. 

After that it was back to the boats.  Zandolee planned a grocery shopping trip into town for more veggies.  Never Say Never have friends in the area that wanted to take the boys up the mountain to ride the gondola up and down the mountain.  Dale and I returned to the Palace to prepare for tomorrow. 

Dale checked and ran the engines, found a leak in our raw water pump that’s going to have to be addressed once we get to Puerto Rico, and “McGuyvered” a float switch he got from a local who works at the marina, as ours had died on the port side bilge.   Its way too large for the space our switch had fit in but it’ll work in a pinch until we can find another.  The taxi ride into town to purchase the right size would have been $40 by itself. Dale figures he’s ahead of the game at this point. 

I organized all of our courtesy flags alphabetically so that we can find what we’re looking for when we need it.  Hey, I do what I can as I had already used my allotted sweat for the day.  
We plan to leave around noon tomorrow, so once again, wish us luck.