Still navigating primarily by paper charts and hand compass, we exited the Caicos Bank just north of the Fish Cays, crossed the Turks Passage to Big Sandy Cay, and set our sights on the island of Hispaniola and the Port of Luperon in the Dominican Republic, across some eighty miles of open ocean.
We had timed our departure from the Caicos Bank to arrive off Hispaniola the next morning. The night was cool, the wind steady and sweet out of the northwest, the deck of Strolla rolling gently. Long before we could see land, we could smell it in through the darkness,cutting through the clean salt air of the open ocean, the sharp scent of charcoal cooking fires, the faint, musty odor of dirt and cow dung and stagnant mangrove swamps.
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| (First view of Hispaniola on the horizon) |
With the break of day, the mountainous headlands of Hispaniola could be seen, pale and jagged in the morning light. From Florida's flat swamps through the low rounded cays of the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos, none of us had been much higher than the top of our own mast since the trip began. Here, at last, were real mountains, the tallest in all of the Caribbean, some more than 10,000ft. We were thrilled.
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| (The mountains of Hispaniola) |
We picked our way slowly into the narrow harbor entrance at Luperon and took up residence amongst our fellow cruisers on the south side of the well protected anchorage, too excited to sleep despite our long night underway. It was Christmas Eve day.
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| (Sailing through the entrance to Luperon Harbor) |
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