We had to wait over a week in Provo before the weather turned enough to allow us to make the 170 mile run to Luperon in the Dominican Republic. At the first break we made a dash out of the marina and then encountered our roughest passage in several years. We had to sale close hauled into the wind and the seas were big and on our quarter making for a very uncomfortable ride and lots of breaking seas over the deck. We found some new "leaks" as the force of the water hitting the decks was like a pressure spray. We had both bilge pumps (electric and manual) fail during the trip so it was good to know Dolcefina was standing  by with a spare if we needed it. We finally made it to Luperon harbor after about a 32 hour passage and were most happy to have the anchor down.
We checked into customs and immigration and explored the town a bit. Luperon is a real cruiser's hangout as there are many semi-permanent boat based residents and prices here are very low and you can live on the hook quite cheaply. Many of the local cruisers are straight out of the 60's having left Woodstock directly for the DR!
The town of Luperon itself is quite poor and people live in squalor but it is quite safe and the people are most friendly. There are several small stores where you can get provisions and Jan is enjoying all the fresh vegetables she couldn't get in the Bahamas but this is a lush and tropical island where you can grow anything. What you can't get here is fresh meat or dairy products so that requires a ride to Puerto Plata about 20 miles away. The restaurants in town are dirt cheap but several serve really good food so we've been eating out most of the time. Jan's Spanish has come in handy as no English is spoken in many places.
There are no marine facilities here either so if you need diesel or water, Rafael comes out on his dinghy with big jugs (18 gallons each) that he pumps by hand into your tanks. Many of the cruiser's in the harbor are supporting themselves by working on transient boat problems as something always seems to need fixing.

Unfortunately, Peggy and Paul have left us. Their generator went on the fritz again and they were not enjoying the Thorny Path or Luperon so they decided to have Captain Mike head back to Provo where they caught a plane back to Florida. Mike will take Dolcefina to Puerto Rico to be repaired and Paul and Peggy will rejoin the boat somewhere when it is fun again. We will miss their good company but this was the right decision for them and we hope to all be together again in a few months time.
We need to get east to Puerto Rico and then south before hurricane season but the weather has not been cooperating. After arrival, we had 10 straight days of 20 knots or more directly out of the east and big seas as well. I had to put Jan on a plane from Puerto Plata so she could make it to son Chris's college graduation today...WAY TO GO CHRIS! Of course, once I put her on the plane a weather window appeared! It has been that kind of season, but hopefully we can begin to make better progress once Jan returns. If not, we hope to explore the countryside a bit before moving on. There are a number of other boats waiting as well, so we should have company along the way. In the meantime...Adios...//GB