Back to the Bahamas

I’m writing from the Berry Islands in NW Bahamas as we wait for a weather window for a 550 nm passage from West End Bahamas to Beaufort NC.  Living aboard Top Shelf will be ending in 8 days.  It is almost time to re-enter the real world.

Jim Driscoll Piloting Top Shelf

While we wait 3 days for the weather window, I thought I would catch up on the blog as I haven’t written since Jim Driscoll and I left the east coast of Puerto Rico 25 days ago.

Jim Driscoll is a good friend and father-in-law of my childhood friend Tom Buckley.  Jim has had a cruiser yacht for as long as I have known him and was the person who recommended a Fleming to Julianne and I five years ago.

Jim & I arrived in San Juan on Saturday, got groceries for the next 2 weeks, then had two days until our weather window for passage to Samana Dominican Republic. 

Arecibo Observatory

Jim rented a car and we drove to the Arecibo Observatory.  The observatory was built in 1963 and was the site of the largest radio telescope in the world until 2016.  The observatory was very remote and gave Jim and I the Puerto Rico “outside the wire” opportunity.  The observatory itself was made famous in 1974 when Joseph Taylor and his graduate student Russel Hulse, who looks surprisingly like Rob Smith from our office, won the Nobel Prize in Physics for discovery of binary pulsars.

Monday was a rest day before we started our first 25 hour cruise across the Mona Passage to Samana.  Tom Buckley was flying into Santa Domingo and would meet us on Wednesday afternoon a few hours after our arrival.

Samana DR

Jim & Tom in Samana

Tom made it on time and we took the next day to bring Jim to see the home of Sammy Sousa, Samana DR.  This was a truly outside the wire experience.  The section we went to looked similar to a ghetto in the US.  It would be intimidating for most folks, but we quickly learned that folks are very friendly.  We did some shopping for the amazing DR fruit, Tom bought some pineapples and I looked for Coconut Bread with the help of a few locals.  I ended up with two coconuts.  I guess my Spanish needs some work!

Tom & Jim at Ocean World

Ocean World's Dockmaster Eddy

We stayed at the marina until 6 pm, then got our Dispatcho from the DR Navy Lieutenant for Luperon.  Our plan was to re-fuel in Ocean World after our 14 hour overnight passage, then say we were going to Luperon, although we were actually going an additional 18 hours to Great Inagua in the Bahamas.  I learned that if we don’t actually stop at the last Dispatcho port,

Cruising North Coast of DR

we wouldn’t have to pay the exit fees and potentially more “presents”.

We arrived in Great Inagua at 7 am and anchored in front of the Morton Salt plant that I discussed going east in January.  I was able to reach our former tour guide Casper, and he once again did a nice job touring the Salt operation and the flamingos.  The lighthouse was now closed as a tourist got hurt when they fell through the rotten wooden staircase inside the lighthouse.

Great Inagua Lighthouse at Sunrise

We stayed two nights on anchor, then we left for Clarence Town, Long Island Bahamas as Tom had to get back to work.

Old 2012 Top Shelf Sticker Still in Clarence Town