Arriving in the Dominican Republic on the Ericson 35 was my first experience to visit a Latin country via a boat. We had just come from the Turks and Caicos Islands, which was practically a resort experience since we had friends staying on land while there. But as we arrived in Puerto Plata on the north coast of Dominican Republic there was a real feeling within me that now I am a traveller. I am now an explorer of distant ports.
Anchorage in Turks & Caicos
Whitey, Graham & Maz leaving port on ‘Harmony’
When the sun broke in the morning, the majestic mountains of the DR greeted us and showed the entry to Puerto Plata. Puerto Plata is located on the north coast of Hispaniola, very close to the border of Haiti. This would be our first landfall since Turks and Caicos and we were so looking forward to it.
We had made the 3 day passage in convoy with two other boats, ‘Calypso’ with a Superior Court Judge from Los Angeles and his girlfriend, and ‘Nightingale’ with a single, retired Colonel of the Canadian army. It gives everyone a bit of comfort to know another boat is near by, especially at night. You can’t always have that option but when possible, it is nice. With us on board ‘Harmony’, was our friend Marianne from Perth. Whitey, Marianne and Graham, also from Perth, had sailed ‘Harmony’ from Texas to New Orleans, then Key West to the Bahamas and then Turks and Caicos. Graham had departed the boat from the Turks and Caicos. Now I was on board and it was also my first time in the Caribbean.
Whitey being towed by boat underway (a great way to cool off)
Arriving on a Sunday provided a unique experience. We anchored in the small crowded harbor that was not very pretty. It was a working, industrial port and very different from the picturesque bay we had left in the Turks and Caicos. But we didn’t care. We felt as we had just done a huge ocean passage and we were ready to get ashore and stretch our legs.
View of Puerto Plata
All captains had to go ashore to clear in with Customs and Immigration. This is typical in most foreign ports. The Captain takes a pre-prepared Crew List, Cargo Declaration, all crew passports and clearance papers from the last port and the departure papers from the previous port. The crew is left on the boat with a yellow Quarantine flag flying while the Captain performs this important function. It’s very different than arriving at an airport with your passport and short customs declaration. When Whitey and the other two captains arrived at the wharf, they asked the armed guard where the Port Captain was located. The guard explained that he would contact the officials who would come out to the boats. This seemed unusual to us. It was the first time that Whitey was boarded by authorities. We waited on board with anticipation. Especially wondering how long it would take as we were hungry and wanted to get ashore to stretch our legs? When they came out, we realized that all they really wanted was to look at the different boats, have a little chat with people from a different country and some beer for their troubles on a Sunday. That’s it. No list of questions that we had to answer. They glanced down below, glanced at the papers and then sat back as they drank our limited supply of beer.
The streets of Puerto Plata
Our group of six finally made it ashore and tied our dinghies up at the concrete dock. We had to walk through the Brugal Rum Factory to get to the streets. Had it been open, we could have had a tour of the factory and tasted the local rum but that would have to wait for another day. As it was now early afternoon on a Sunday, the streets were relatively quiet. We strolled up the narrow streets, peeking into a few shop windows but were seriously on a search for a restaurant. Any place would do as long as it had food and was off the boat. As we searched for a restaurant, we were all thankful that Whitey spoke such good Spanish. It took us a while to find something open on a Sunday afternoon in a Latin country but we finally found a small restaurant. The meal was perfect but they didn’t serve alcohol. After we had satisfied our bellies, we continued to 
explore the little town of Puerto Plata. We all were so happy to be ashore we just wanted to find a place to have a drink and relax. But there was nothing open on a Sunday afternoon in this Latin country. However, Whitey, with his Spanish language skills and extensive travelling in Latin countries during his backpacking years knew just where to find such a place. A whore house! Hey why not? There’s not much happening in those type of establishments during the day. (Or so we hoped.)
We located such an establishment on a back road and Whitey asked in Spanish if we could have a 
drink there. The young lady shrugged her shoulders in a gesture of ‘why not?’ Of course we wanted to try the local Brugal Rum. ‘Ron y Coca Cola para todos’ Whitey said. The coke she brought us was in bottles and the Brugal Rum bottles were similar size and had a cute little gold net around it. The cost of the rum was equivalent to $1 US a bottle and each coke was equivalent to $1 a bottle. No fancy mixologist here. The young girl placed the bottles, some glasses and a plastic bowl filled with ice on the table. Make our own! It made total sense to us then to have equal parts rum and coke in each drink.
We were the only customers in the place, which made our group a source of entertainment to the local people walking by. Who were these gringos drinking in the local whore house in the middle of a Sunday? We loved it all as we drank and swapped stories throughout the afternoon. It was a bit hot inside with only a small fan in the room. A small fan and not much furniture but the music speakers were over 6 feet tall and blasting out music. We had to ask the staff to turn down the music more than once just so we could hear ourselves talk.
Time for dinner on ‘Harmony’
And then the moment came that I had to use the bathroom. There was no way I could wait until I returned to the boat. So I asked in my rusty Spanish ‘Donde esta el bano?’ Everyone in my group thought I was crazy to use the bathroom there. ‘Really, Max, can’t you wait?’ ‘No, really – I can not!’ Even the young girl serving us looked at me questionably. But she tilted her head toward the back door and said ‘Venga’. So I followed her out the back door. I remember it looked like there were lots of doors but I was not interested in looking around. ‘Just keep your head down, use the toilet and leave’ I kept telling myself. The girl told me to wait as she peeked her head in one door and did a quick clean up. I smiled and said ‘gracias’. I got back to Whitey and our friends feeling relieved. And I thought again, as I have many times in my life that ‘Max, you are a long way from Brigham City, Utah’.
Cooking in the galley of ‘Harmony’
On our approach to Puerto Plata that morning, we had passed a freighter that seemed to be aground on a sand bar. We later learned that the night before the Captain wasn’t paying attention and missed the channel by a few yards. But this boat was not going to get off for a while. It was a coastal freighter that was filled with frozen chickens and bananas. The Captain decided he should jettison his cargo in hopes that he could refloat his boat. When we returned to our boat we saw a wooden boat that was over flowing with frozen chickens making its way through the anchorage. They were giving the chickens away before they defrosted and were no good. Bonanza! And later someone was passing out bananas. We got more bananas than we knew what to do with. So we had a cooking and baking frenzy. We had limited refrigeration on the boat (and no freezer) so cooked up a huge pot of curried chicken to eat that day or the next. And with the bananas – we baked, and we fried, and we did anything we could think of.
