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| Cayo Levintado, where we anchored on leaving Samana |
Hola mes amigos y amigas - no, I'm not going native, just practicing my espagnol, which is needed here in the DR. English is not spoken here, and when it is, it's not spoken well.
Two nights ago, I was on my way for a nighttime swim in the infinity pool at Bahia Puerto Samana - a truly swish resort (member of a group known as the top 50 Exclusive Small Resorts of the World) where we stopped to visit with my friend Jeff, who moved here from Cleveland - and who can blame him? This place is spectacular, as you can see from the attached video, and is popular with whale watchers in season, and tourists throughout Canada's winters, the beaches are magnificent.To get here required a 38 hour sail from San Juan PR...we had excellent conditions crossing the Mona Passage, which has a terrible reputation for late day thunderstorms - so we sailed across it in the early morning through the afternoon - it's about 60 miles between PR and DR.
Leaving Samana, we sailed for 26 hours, to Luperon and a totally different world. This area is very much third world - I don't have the cables to download my photos here, but believe me when I say - half naked children in the streets, lots of beaten up motorcycles and old clunkers that wouldn't qualify for a junkyard back home, lots of boats in the harbour even now in the off season (it's a hurricane hole) - essentially a fascinating place.
Below, a few photos - me on Junga's (Jeff's local friend) motorbike, in Samana - we went 'native', which is always fun and went up to Jeff's place here. On the return, Junga let me ride his bike so I could take photos....not quite my Gold Wing back home and I started to get concerned when the front brake handle fell off - but Junga told me not to worry, the front brakes didn't work anyway....well, THAT'S good news!
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| No Front Brake No Clutch No Starter Am I crazy? Probably... |
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| Sipping champagne at the resort.... ahhh, THIS is the life.... |
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| Stay tuned....dinner tonight at Wendy's - if anyone wants to Google Hangout, I'll arrange it and you can watch the movie tonight with us! Or just chat....email me here. Like the sign says, Gringo's Welcome! |
