Please God, let our anchor hold. I said a little prayer. I knew even with how horrible I felt, Larry was considerably worse. He would not have the energy to continually try to set/re-set the anchor.
First time we dropped it, he realized we were over hard bottom. From the amazingly beautiful sandy beach, we knew there had to be a sandy bottom somewhere. We circled the cove a bit and found a very nice sandy patch. The anchor did that amazing “tug” as it grabbed hold and the boat spun to counter it. That’s the feeling I love when anchoring. You just know it’s dug in!
Punta Macao was a resort area. The beach was used by the resort and also bussed people in. Within a few hours of our arrival, it was teaming with tourists. There was a young couple (complete with tux and white flowing dress) having their pictures taken at the beach … some actually standing in the saltwater! Her poor dress! There was also a model shoot taking place onshore. Carl … Larry says he only took those pictures for you and he wasn’t being a spying pervert. Should I believe him???
We had taken a brief nap. The plan was to sleep from about 10am to 1pm and then get up and do the overly needed maintenance we’d discovered over the last couple of days. #1 priority was to sew our main sail. A couple of feet from the top, there was a large horizontal tear. Luckily, it is on a seam and I will be able to repair it easily. We were only in bed about 1 hour when I realized, if we are going to sew the sail today, we had better do so before the winds pick up too much. That is a lot of windage to have on deck and try to control while sewing. I woke up Larry and we got to it.
About 1 ½ hours later, the sail was repaired and back in place. It turned out there were several smaller tears along the edge that we took the time to fix also. Eventually, we will need a new sail but the longer we can patch this together, the better.
We spent the afternoon doing various tasks. I wanted so desperately to swim (the water looked so inviting) but when I asked Larry to join me, he said he didn’t think he’d have the strength to pull himself up the ladder. Thinking about that aspect, I rejected the idea myself. Jumping in … that would be the easy part. Trying to climb back up the ladder when I was exhausted … that’s a whole other story. Just trying to hold my head up while sitting in the cockpit has become a difficult task!
About mid afternoon, a small boat came up beside us. It was a guy from the local coast guard and 3 others. One person stayed in the boat. The coast guard guy, his interpreter and some other guy who’s purpose was unclear to us boarded our vessel. We had to show them all our papers of where we were, where we’re going, passports, etc. The interpreter gave Larry 2 small necklaces for “good luck”. You know, they sell them on the beach for about $6/each but he wanted us to have these (no charge) as a token of his friendship. Of course, if we wanted to give him something to help support his family, he wouldn’t object. Typical island con!
I told Larry … we need to get a bunch of “crap” like this and next time this happens, we can simply return the gesture (giving them our crap) before they even have a chance to ask for handouts!
Larry gave the two guys a beer (one of those big ones to split) and gave the coast guard guy some water. They actually asked for money (which we heard they often do) so Larry gave the coast guard guy $4 US. We just wanted to get them off our boat and they didn’t seem like they would leave without $$$’s. I don’t think they were too pleased by the amount but when realizing this was all they were going to get, they departed.
We got the weather charts between 2pm and 5pm and then Larry got the off-shore report at 5:30. Everything was consistent to the prior report. We were good to cross the Mona Passage!
By 6:30, we had both crashed. We planned on leaving about 4am and that was going to come quickly. Of course, Larry slept great. He actually woke at 3am and was fussing around while I tried to catch those last few minutes of sleep that had evaded me most of the night. I finally gave up about 3:30. Larry already had coffee made. He was feeling great, well rested and even hungry! Anyone who knows Larry knows he does not eat in the early am. He needs his “wake up” time before he can even think about food. Not today. At 3:30am, he was making corned beef hash and eggs. It was good (I can usually eat anytime) but I’m still not feeling the best so was having a hard time. Every time I eat, I get crampy and sick to my tummy still.
We pulled anchor by 4:30 and headed out of Punta Macao. Of all the places we’ve been in the Dominican Republic, this was the prettiest and I wish we could have spent more time here. However, that desire wasn’t great enough to want to delay our leaving. We had a good weather window and we were going to use it!
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