Waiting Game.....

......would you believe it...they did not give us our Dispatchio yesterday... Sven spend nearly all day in the office of the Commandante to get the Dispatchio.... first at 10... then he said12....the 2 and then finally at 6 o'clock.... when Sven arrived again at 6, the Commandante had left for the day....the Dispatchio was lying on the table, but oh no we had to come back in the morning at 8 o'clock.....as you can imagine.... Sven was fuming......Never mind...nothing else we can do about that....

In the night the weather changed and it got really windy and it started to rain....oh man we could not beleive it...I was really really disappointed....did that mean no weather window for us.... so we kept ourselves busy this morning with things to do... cleaning the deck and the hull of the ship...filling more water into our tank, then our toilet got blocked so we had to fix that as well...Sven did an oil change and then finally the sky cleared at lunch ....so Sven is off to the commandante's office again and I really hope that everything goes well this time..... don't really like these kind of power games.....

Well we keep you posted what is happening...and whether we are getting out of here today or not.....

All man on Deck.....

The day has arrived.... we are leaving.... the sail has been set, the wind has dropped and the surf has settled..... its time to lift the anchor ...

this morning we have been really busy...... putting on the sails....filling up our water tank......cleaning all the windows....clearing the deck.... Sven went to the Commandante to pay our fee and to get a dispatchio (a paper to show that we paid our fees and are legally leaving the DR).... I have prepared some meals and now it is just a matter of hours before lifting the anchor.... sail ahoy.... St. John here we come....we are all very excited ..... watch the space we are going to change location!!!!!

December..... New Moon...... New Beginning!

Wow it’s December and that means the joy of Christmas is moving onto our boat. This month our theme for school is singing Christmas Carols, learning German Poems and talking about Christmas. One of Carlos questions was tonight, Mum, really tell me the truth, is Santa fake …..I know he is not real, there is no Nikolaus, no Father Christmas and no Tooth Fairy…. Its you guys…..well what do you do when your 7 year old ask you such serious question in a very serious manner….. Luckily it was already dark so he could not see my smile and my face when I was looking for the right answer. I decided to tell him the truth…. I whispered in his ear that we are the ones buying the presents and that there is no Santa Claus. Of course he told Julia straight away and all I could hear from Julia’s corner, Carlos I don’t want to hear that secret……oh man life is not easy sometimes. My parents have send Julia and Carlos an Advent Calendar from Playmobil. Awesome…. I thought …. Since we started opening the little doors I have to deal with Carlos pestering me….oh mummy I cannot wait until the 24th I have to open them all….. he is hanging on my legs and bagging me to let him open up all 24 doors at once…..OMG…. I keep telling him that this is now his time to learn to be patience ….he is so funny and makes me laugh a lot.
We have just been given a Monopoly game. Since Carlos has just discovered his love for money….he loves playing this game. It is the New Zealand Edition and it includes an Eftpos machine, you do not deal with money only with Credit Cards. It took Sven and me a while to get used to this style, but the children love it and it is fun to play with both of them and to see how excited they get when they buy New Zealand property and rake in the rent.
We had plans to leave the DR today, but the weather window has shifted a bit and so we are going to wait for another few days for the wind and swell to settle before setting sails. I would not be surprised if we leave into a new adventure on a new Moon......

Sosua and back home

I did not really sleep very well in the hotel bed…. I don’t know if it was too noisy, too light or that I simply missed my bed. However the next morning we got up fairly early as we had to go back to Luperon and we also wanted to meet up with Jim in Puerto Plata. We had a nice breakfast in our Apartment, Julia had a swim in the pool afterwards and meanwhile I packed our bags and then we left towards Sosua. We stopped in Sosua to have a look at the beach and the German Bakery to treat ourselves with a “Mandelhoernchen and Erdbeerschnittchen”. We sat next to Horst from Austria who has been living in the Dominican Republic for the last 14 years. We had a very interesting conversation with him and got a bit sidetracked and stayed too long, but thoroughly enjoyed meeting and talking to him. Sosua seemed nice, but you could see the European influence there, lots of cafes, restaurants and resorts. At some stage we took a turn off the main road and ended up somewhere in the middle of nowhere, but to see the country side was very interesting. We got stopped in our exploration by a creek running through the middle of the road and you could have only passed that stream with a 4 wheel drive that we did not have. We turned back and went to Puerto Plata to meet up with Jim. Jim had been waiting for us at the German Restaurant on the waterfront of Puerto Plata…. We had something to drink and then we went off to do some last shopping. Again we overloaded the car with our shopping, that every time we hit a little ditch in the road we heard it cracking and rattling….. autsch……a few times we thought we have to get out of the car to drive over certain areas along the road. Finally back home we had to unpack the car, overload the Dinghy and then repack everything into the boat… when we finished I was done for the day…. I just managed to brush my teeth and fall into bed. I enjoyed our trip, and I am glad we did it, but I have to say it felt a bit rushed and my agenda did not match with the expectations of my family. I wanted to explore the island in those two days and all my family wanted to do is hang around the pool and relax and this is how the whole trip felt ….rushed, unfinished and squeezed in…… a bit of a shame but never mind…. Hopefully I will learn for next time.

A trip to Cabarete

We finally managed to hire an affordable car and making our way to Cabarete. We intended to stay away for two days, but I was hoping that we might add another day to our trip. We got up fairly early and while I went to the Yoga class Julia and Carlos did their school work and Sven picked up the car.
When I came home everyone was ready with breakfast and I quickly packed our backpack and off we went. Toni picked us up so that we did not have to leave our Dinghy at the Dinghy Dock for the next couple of days. It was a great feeling driving through the country side of the Dominican Republic. Everything is so green and lush and so rich in fruits and vegetables. All along the roadside to Cabarete you can see these little fruit/veggie stalls. We stopped at one to buy some Bananas and Avocadoes and I believe these were the cheapest one I have bought so far here in the DR.
We passed Puerto Plata as we planned to meet up with Jim there on our way back. Passing Sosua we could see the evidence of Europeans living there. Lots of Condos, different shops and the roads were good and tar sealed. We did not stop in Sosua, as I thought we can always do that on the way back, I really wanted to go to Cabarete and the Dudu Lagoon, a place that Jan and Dave had highly recommended to us. By the time we had reached Cabarete, Julia and Carlos had enough of sitting in the car and were constantly asking ….are we there yet  We had booked ourselves into the Coconut Palm Resort, sounded great and the room rate was suppose to be US $ 20. We found the place straight away and before we checked in we drove the little road alongside the hotel to the beach….this was the start to explore the area. At the end of the road we found the beach and a little restaurant. It looked a bit dotchy but we were hungry and so we decided to stop there for lunch. Big mistake! The restaurant was right on the beach so kind of idyllic, but we had to wait for 45 minutes for our meal. When the meal finally arrived it was terrible, the children’s burger and fries was uneatable and our meal would have scored the lowest mark out of ten. We were really annoyed, ate quickly and left the place. We made our way back to the hotel and checked in. The Coconut Palm Resort had seen its best years in 2002/2003, but the rooms were clean, tidy and big. They were like a little apartment with a awesome few over the ocean, it also had a little kitchen in there and the most important part a hot shower and running water.
After check in we made our way into Cabarete. Wow what place, it reminded us very much of European beaches, busy with lots of people lying on sun lounges, lots of little restaurants right on the beach, lots of kite surfer and wind surfer. We thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere there; first thing we did … indulged into a yummy ice cream, what a treat! We sat on the beach licking our ice cream and watched the surfers and their effort on the water. Afterwards we drove a bit more through the country side and were actually thinking of going to the Dudu Lagoon, but had to realize that it was too far to go and so we turned around again. We went shopping to pick up some dinner and then went back to the hotel. We cooked a great meal and then enjoyed watching a family movie in bed. We were all tired and went to bed early that first night.

Weather Window is approaching

Unbelievable, we have been here in the Dominican Republic now for nearly 5 months….. Yeah … and it seems that we finally getting the weather window that we have been waiting for. It looks like we will be leaving the DR on Thursday to sail to the BVI’s.
The last couple of days we have been busy tidying and cleaning the boat. I have cleaned out our clothing cupboard and whatever we haven’t worn in the last year, had to leave the boat, because Carlos has grown like a mushroom most of his clothes went. Second time round on the swap market we made quite a bit of money again, which put a smile on all our faces. We are all going to treat ourselves to a big Ice Cream in Cabarete.
Julia and Carlos have been busy in the kitchen, they made the Ice Cream, the next day they made Pizza and today they made Lemon Cake. The whole family loves making cake and especially licking the bowl empty afterwards.
Sven and Carlos have finally assembled the anchor winch and are very proud of their result and so are Julia and I…..well done boys!
Now that the winch is finished and the boat is clean and tidy, we have decided to hire a car and go to Cabarete for a couple of days. I really wanted to see Cabarete before we go and so I am looking forward to our little adventure trip. Once we come back from the trip we do a final provisioning in Puerto Plata and then on Wednesday putting the sails back …… St. John here we come

Yeah....the anchor winch is painted

Finally we have done it....the anchor winch is painted and reinstalled again.......we are all happy and now nothing apart from the weather can stop us to move on.

We had quiet a relaxing day today....early in the morning me and Julia and Carlos went to Yoga. Yes, both wanted to come and join us for a session....I suppose they wanted to know what their Mum is doing up there in the Yacht Club. After 10 minutes of participating they discovered the two little dogs and then started playing with water and other interesting things that they found lying around!

Once we went back to the boat we did our homeschooling, cooked, washed and played and had fun in the sun.