Should I stay or should I go?
So we arrived in Luperón, hooked a mooring ball, and set off to answer the question of the hour: do we spend hurricane season here, or do we press on for Grenada. This was near the end of May (yes, we’re playing catch-up here), so we had about a week before the official start of Hurricane Season. Historically, June is actually pretty safe, with most hurricane activity taking place in the gulf, rather than in the eastern islands. So we figured that we’d be safe traveling for another couple of weeks, at least from tropical storms. So the question is, is it worth pushing for a couple of extra weeks to be “south of the box” – fighting into the wind to get to the Virgins, and then crossing the Caribbean in one big multi-day leg.
Spoiler alert: we’re still in Luperón. It’s harder to get insured, but statistically, less likely that we’d need it, because the geography of this place is so protective. And spending the hurricane season here lets us start relaxing and getting to some of the deferred boat projects a couple weeks earlier. Plus, it saves us a trip across the Caribbean: if we pushed for Grenada, we’d end up island-hopping north once the season ended, so at some point we’d have to cross again to get to Panama. Whereas this way, we’ve got a long leg from Grenada to the ABCs, but at least it’s with the wind and current.
Plus, Luperón is nice. There have been some cultural things to understand, like how check-in requires going to five different offices, or how outsourcing your laundry doesn’t necessarily include the drying part.
But, Captain seems to like it here.
And things are reasonably cheap, by US standards, so we’ve been able to find an apartment and a car. This should make some of the more space-intensive projects easier (looking at you, Spinnaker), and give us a little more freedom to explore. What’s here? Mountains, jungles, beaches – but more of that in future posts, because this is temporarily going to be a Dominican Republic travel blog, with occasional asides for sailboat projects and pictures of our reluctant adventure cat.
Captain’s face is priceless in that bag….