Tuesday 30 Apr, Dom Rep day 7: Dinghy ride through dense mangroves to Paraiso Caño Hondo eco-lodge, then heavy upwind sail across Samana Bay to Cayo Levantado.
I wake up before the alarm. It’s a stunning morning anchored here, alone, in the Haitises National Park. Clear blue sky and hardly a breath of wind. What a contrast to last evening’s thunder storms. Before Oana is even awake, I fly the drone over the steep sided limestone islets and the lush mangroves.
As soon as we can after breakfast we head off in the dinghy to explore, before any tourist boats invade the peace. First we tootle downwind along the shoreline, in and out through the limestone islands that tower over us, each one undercut by the sea at its base, making them look like they could topple over at any time. Then along the mangroves that line the bays and inlets. The mangrove trees here really are the biggest we’ve seen. And so healthy. Could it be human influence that has killed off so many mangroves in other islands? We stop briefly at the park warden’s jetty. They have a colourful dwelling set in a tiny cove with beach and palm trees, but we don’t go ashore as there is a fee to pay, and we haven’t brought money.
Then we head back upwind, which is now blowing pretty strongly, towards the river mouth that leads up to Paraiso Caño Hondo. It’s a bit of a wet ride! Once inside the river mouth we are sheltered from the wind as we disappear into the quiet and narrow river with huge mangrove trees down each side, their branches joining overhead enclosing us in a mangrove tunnel! All along the winding river we see different species of birds in the trees and perched on the mangrove roots ready to dive on fish. Whilst overhead there are numerous birds of prey circling with their wings spread wide. A great place for bird watchers.
After about 1/2 mile the mangroves give way to green fields with the occasional cow or horse and soon we come to the source of the tourist boats. There are several here on a small dock and others being loaded with their cargo from buses, all in orange life jackets. We are invited in, allowed to tie up the dinghy and directed up the road towards the eco-hotel. It’s a longer walk than we expected and it passes several rice fields, their crops a vivid lush green. In fact, everything is a lush green here. With the paddy fields and the limestone cliffs in the distance, we could be in China!
Finally we arrive to the Paraiso Caño Hondo eco-hotel. It’s very interesting. A bit rustic but nicely done I guess. We read that it was rated by Forbes as one of the top 10 eco-tourism destinations.
All the concrete of the buildings is covered by mosaics of cemented limestone trying to make the buildings blend in with the native limestone outcrops nearby. What is really interesting is how they have made large bathing pools all around the hotel. Each at its own level with waterfalls cascading from one to another. The water is from natural springs. No chlorine in these pools.
After paying $4 each as entrance fee, we sit and have a coffee in the shade. Cheapest coffee ever on 40cents a cup! But not the best, as one could probably guess. After that we take a swim in one of the pools. A bit chilly! But very refreshing. There are only a few guests around. We assume the rest must have gone on a boat tour. We hope these aren’t the only guests they have!
By midday we depart the eco-lodge back down the winding river and across the bay to Cloudy Bay.
Once aboard we upanchor and start what we hope it will be a nice sail to Cayo Levantado, 20nm away. The wind is really strong now, 17-19kts. As we head west out of Bahia De San Lorenzo, the wind is nicely behind us. But as soon as we turn the corner, at Punta Arena, it’s a 12nm upwind easterly sail to Cayo Levantado where we plan to anchor for the night. As the wind is now touching 20kts true, we have heavily reefed main and genoa. The first tack, north across Samana Bay goes well. We are doing 7-8kts in the short choppy seas that throws spray right back to the aft deck. Pity, because that thunderstorm last night did a great job of de-salting the boat!
Just before we tack, we get a fright. Suddenly the screen on our Raymarine chart plotter goes blank and all the instruments starts screaming “no GPS”. At first I panic because we are among reefs and shallows. But Oana quickly thrusts the iPad at me, on which the Navionics App is working just fine. Phew! Momentarily I’d forgotten our backup charts. In the next five minutes the Raymarine re-boots itself and is up and running again. But really, this is not a good omen and it makes us realize just how much we rely on electronic navigation these days. But even with paper charts, navigating in these shoals with no marked channels would take local knowledge. It leaves me a bit nervous for a while.
After we tack on the north shore, other than the Raymarine issue, Cloudy Bay just doesn’t seem to be going so well. The waves are really slowing her down. And, worse, our tacking angle is a disaster. It will take us hours and hours at this rate to get the next 10nm upwind. Add to add to that we are dodging between shallows and reefs.
So without much thought we turn on the engine and motor-sail. This gets our speed back up and slightly better angle to the wind. But the waves are now really hitting us as the wind gusts to 24kts (30kts across the deck). As the bow dips into each wave, we occasionally get a 1ft wave of water coming all along the deck and right up the windscreen and over the spray-hood. Oooh, how can this be, in the protected Samana Bay? It’s not a pleasant ride at all. So the next tack the genoa goes away entirely and we motor as close to the wind as we can while keeping the mainsail full. This tack we make it all the way to Samana town where we tack again and lay Cayo Levantado directly.
We finally anchor in 3m water in the lee of the Cayo Levantado island, on the edge of the beach sand bar and drop back into 9m of water. Fingers crossed the trade winds stay all night or there will be a 54ft yacht joining the beach chairs and umbrellas!
It’s already 4pm so we dinghy ashore while there is still some sunshine. This island is a highlight of the Samaná Peninsula for tourists. The east end has a private hotel but the west end is for general tourist use. And they come by the boat load from the mainland, just a mile away. When we anchored the beach was quite busy. But by the time we had beached the dinghy (and got it a bit swamped in the surf!) most of the tourists were heading back to their ferries. One hour later, after a swim and a stroll, we had the whole beach to ourselves, where we sat on beach chairs until the sun finally hid itself in the towering thunder clouds to the west. It really is a beautiful little island. And they seem to have fully commercialized it! The Bahia Principe Cayo Levantado hotel dominates this small island.
As we were about to relaunch the dinghy we rather oddly find ourselves confronted by two uniformed customs officers. I quickly referred them to Oana for Spanish. We know that we should not be anchored here over night without going ashore to again checkout tomorrow. But somehow Oana manages to sweet talk them and they leave all smiles and apparently happy that we had not just arrived from another country without checking in. We’ll be departing early tomorrow morning… so catch us if you can!
Back on Cloudy Bay the motion is surprisingly not too bad considering there is just this small island between us and the full Atlantic swell. Our only real danger here is being hit at night by one of the fast ferries to/from the island. We had that experience on New Years night in St. Kitts. Not again thank you. So we keep the bright aft deck light on to make us clearly visible.
Our evening is relaxing after a busy day, the LTE phone signal keeping us entertained with lovely fast access to internet for once, whilst music throngs from the island. Humans really are a noisy species. We much preferred the peace of the Haitises National Park last night!