Tuesday 16th January

Luperon
Dominican Republic

19 54.4 N
70 56.5 W

At last the sun shone all day – it made a pleasant change although it also made everything very sticky inside the boat. We spent the morning being very lazy and doing nothing at all, then around lunchtime we took the dink into town. We walked to Steve’s place which was fairly quiet and ordered lunch by then a couple of the other yachties had arrived so Gerry sat chatting with them whilst I logged onto the internet and answered emails and loaded the blog.
Tom White (I know you just wanted to see your name in my blog!)– To answer your question on the blog from a few days ago:- the upper bearing was unable to rotate mainly because of hose clamps that had been used as a temporary repair to the top track bearing (not by us!). When we tried to furl the jib, the track and the upper bearing rotated together wrapping the jib halyard around the forestay against the wrap stop. The wrap stop, being bolted to the forestay, started to unravel the forestay wire (like a basket). The jib halyard broke as it had been wrapped against the wrap stop, causing the jib to descend. It was only after going to Fort Pierce to replace the jib halyard that we found the problem with the forestay. Although none of the forestay wires were broken it’s likely that if repairs hadn’t been made to the furling system the forestay would have broken and I would have been on a plane going home 1st class whilst Gerry fought with insurance for a new mast! I hope this makes some sort of sense to you.
Anyway after finishing with the internet, which was painfully slow, we had lunch and sat chatting with a couple of older guys who have almost taken root here, they’ve been here so long. I’ve finally found out the day that the fruit and vegetable truck visits the square near the statue of General Luperon on his horse, at the end of the main street near the ban with the ATM . Bob and Karen take note – its Tuesday mornings fairly early. Of course by the time I found this out it was mid afternoon and too late! – Oh well we will still be here next week so I can go then. I bought the bare essential fruit and vegetables, some hamburger meat and some beer from Steve – he always has things for sale but they are often more expensive than elsewhere, you just have to be in the right place at the right time for good prices. Oh and by the way if any of you are looking at cruising for any length of time invest in the Evert fresh green bags available from West Marine (or similar green sacks available from camping stores) to store your fruits and vegetable in. They are not cheap but they certainly keep the fruits and vegetables in good condition for a long time, I still have had some root vegetables (carrots and parsnips) that I bought in Jacksonville and they are in excellent condition still. I wish I had bought an extra packet of them – don’t make the same mistake! We hung around Steve’s place for a good part of the afternoon, I even had some chocolate chip ice cream there which was a great treat. Our laundry wasn’t done so we will have to make another trip back there to collect it.
Eventually we headed back to the boat, Gerry tied to scrub some rust stains off the fiberglass – caused by bungee strap hooks, but wasn’t too successful whilst I fiddled around below deck with housekeeping tasks. We watched a movie - “Bad Eggs” in the evening to relieve the boredom of a quiet night on board, thanks Gaz, I’m not too sure it would have been appreciated by our American friends as is was definitely an Ozzie sense of humour movie – we enjoyed it!