Rio San Juan, Dominican Republic

We arrived at Rio San Juan about 7am.  Our GPS gives extremely limited data for the north coast of the DR so unfortunately, we were kind of forced to follow “the gentleman’s guide to passages south” for guidance into port.  Of course, we did as the book suggestions and had an early morning arrival.  Again, STUPID!!!  This meant we were headed directly into the rising sun as we tried to navigate the channel.  He suggests two points on shore to use for navigation.  First, he said there are two buildings … sure there were, but they were behind the trees!  Next he says to turn when the river delta is at a bearing of 90 degrees.  Okay … so where is this damn river delta???  Even after viewing the coastline in binoculars, we were unable to find any sign of a river at all!  He also gives lat/long for a recommended anchorage point.  Sure … this point is great if you don’t mind dragging anchor into either the shallow reef you just had to navigate around or the fleet of fishing boats that are anchored within yards of these coordinates.  As soon as we realized the anchor was just dragging along the hard bottom, we pulled and tried someplace else.  It took us 4 attempts until we found a spot where it would grab sand (but by that time, we were almost on the beach)!  It seemed to be holding good so we stayed put.  A quote from Larry … I was going to say this place has shit for holding but shit would probably be pretty good holding … so, this place has petrified shit for holding! 

By the time we were finally settled on the hook, it was about 10am.  We crashed, as we were both thoroughly exhausted.  Larry slept pretty well but (as always), I feared of dragging up on the beach so sleep evaded me.

We got up for a bit and fussed around the boat, getting another couples of hours of “rest” and then pulled anchor at 11pm.  Onto our next destination.

BTW … still feeling shitty (no pun intended).  I still have severe cramping and the “d” word.  Larry has mild cramping and very much “d”.  I’ve been trying to force him to eat to keep up his strength.  Me, on the other hand, food just give me nausea and crampy.  I’d rather do without.