The week began with a trip to the Immigration Office and Navy in order to get our departure papers to move the boat to Ocean World. Much to my surprise, the initial response from the Navy was, “You are not allowed to move the boat”. When I inquired why we were not allowed to move the boat, the officer responded, “If you have been in the DR longer than 3 months, you may leave the country on the boat but you can’t move the boat in the DR. You can stay in Luperon, though”. As I puzzled through this statement, I put on my quiet voice, smiled and calmly threatened, “Well, you are going to have a lot of trouble in the next few weeks then. Every boat in the harbor has been here longer than 3 months and they are all getting ready to leave Luperon now that hurricane season is over so I think you had better figure out a solution that works for us all”. I saw his eyes widen as he realized the truth behind my statement and envisioned a large number of Gringos banging on his office door with pitchforks and torches. A few phone calls later and all was good. It turns out that people do not need a visa extension to stay in the country but a boat does. So, we hired a local man to handle all of the details and Galt is officially on his way to having a Visa which will allows us to take our time and see even more of the DR. The next step was to get the departure paper approved. The officer asked when we were leaving. “Friday morning at 4:00am,” I said. He looked at me in horror, “No, you leave at 6:30am and I can do”. My response, “No, we leave at 4:00am and you will do. We must leave early to travel safely.” His response, “Why so early? It only takes one hour to get to Puerto Plata.” I sighed, “It is one hour by CAR to get to Puerto Plata. It is 3 to 4 hours by boat to get there.” Once again, his eyes widened and he said, “Whoa. That is a slow boat. I give you paper now so you can leave.” I am pretty sure I heard him cheer as I was leaving his office….
We planned on departing Luperon on Friday which meant that every minute of the week was booked with final preparations. At least, until it rained. It hasn’t rained in Luperon for three months but the weather suddenly decided that it needed to bless us with mass amounts of rain. When you live on a boat and it rains, there is really not much you can do. We did all of our indoor chores in about 3 hours and then sat and watched it rain. And rain. And rain. We awoke on Thursday to cloudy skies but no rain so Bill began working like a madman. He completed the deck work while we waited anxiously for the benches that were made in town to arrive. Alas, Poppo was spotted in the distance delivering the benches from Felo’s workshop. As Poppo’s boat approached, Bill said, “Well, the benches are here….but they have no seats”. We are not quite sure how “seats” on a bench got lost in translation but evidently it did. Luckily, we had some plywood leftover from a previous deck project so Bill quickly manufactured a seat for me so I would have a place to sit when we started our move. In Luperon, the best time to set out on a boat is early in the morning to avoid high winds and rough seas. Much to my horror, that time was indeed 4:00am. Those of you who know me well can imagine how chipper I was at that ungodly time of day. Thank goodness I was only in charge of pulling up the mooring lines and searching for crab pots to avoid on our way out so chipper-ness was not a required trait. The trip to Ocean World went very smoothly and Bill did a great job steering us safely into port. Galt is now happily installed at his new home for the next month while we fly to the States for Thanksgiving. He won’t be lonely when we are gone because the Ocean World Marina is adjacent to the Ocean World theme park. It is similar to Seaworld and they have a water park and animal performances. The performances are at 11:00am and 2:00pm daily. How do I know this information? I know because the trainer who does the show is on the loudspeaker throughout the show singing and cheering on the crowd. It sounds as if he is standing on the bow of the boat. I believe I will learn more Spanish from him each day than I have from my Rosetta Stone language program! We have figured out that the show starts when they play “who let the dogs out” and the show is almost over when he sings, “Heidi Heidi Heidi Ho!” Thank goodness we are going to be in the States for a bit or it would be a really long month! As we depart for the States, I wish you all well! I am not sure if I will have time to blog while on the trip so if you do not hear from me, have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
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AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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