Don't try this at home but for us, this was our best option. We have heard from many that Luperon, Dominican Republic is a fantastic hurricane hole. They wer...

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we are coming to you from lupron

dominican republic after leaving the

boat on anchor for five months and it's

just about sunset

later in the episode we'll share some of

the key factors as to why we were able

to successfully leave our boat on anchor

for five months in a foreign country and

come back to it just as we left it I

don't know say you missed my squeal but

here we are

she's still here the outboard still here

we're here feels like a dream we left

the outboard right there mounted she's

still there so we've been up for about

48 hours

we caught a caught a plane in Florida

late around 9 o'clock and had a we flew

to New York and had an 8 hour layover in

New York and then flew here and we had

barter with the taxi but this wasn't our

first rodeo and we did great Michaels

killing it and then we caught two Guagua

and then we hiked quite a ways and then

I got picked up by some sailors and then

we just walked to the dock and the first

guy that Michael asked Carl gave us a

ride in his dinghy and we've just

boarded shock Matei I suspect

jolly Holly might have left us some

rollers did we pick up rollers rollers

paint rollers oh yeah that was like new

oh they do must be for the bottom job

coming up Thanks

and here's the big news big news we left

our battery bank on both we left the

solar panels connected I don't know if

you can see that up there and battery

bank one

almost a 14 volts battery bank - almost

a 14 and we've tested the anchor light

burned out because we left the anchor

light on but cabin lights we've tested

and kicking on right out the gate the

inverter powers right up so those are

the big things the outboard was still

here the batteries are still functioning

Joe was just about to give up on his 20

or 30 of try and she fires up out of

nowhere hey Johnson she's back so when

we stored our dinghy we kind of folded

it all up and this right here this this

was creased I got really hot inside the

boat and so you can see it separated

right here and that's all the way in

ended up tube right there so hair is

coming out right here so we are going to

first patch this inside down here patch

this over the top and then we're gonna

patch this on top of that and then after

that we're gonna put a big square patch

over this entire area and hoping that

works we patched it pretty good and then

we had it in the water and everything

was working good and then as it got hot

we started to hear the air leaking out

and Michael heard it and so we had it

ready for a quick abort I guess you can

say and we pulled the outboard off and

threw it up here and pulled the dinghy

up and we're gonna patch it again so we

only let it sit for a whole day and

we're gonna we're gonna put a bigger

patch on see what happens

our neighbor Alan from Salina K dropped

off this contact cement for us to try

out

we've got our first meal since back at

the boat Michael what do you got going

basic beans and rice cook the beans all

afternoon and they're super awesome go

son yeah we're just throwing them in

with some Uncle Ben's cheese and

broccoli rice most of our food is is

pretty much needing to be thrown away

but the stuff that was left in our

vacuum sealed containers is looking

pretty good so we're gonna give it a

shot here

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once we got the Johnson mounted and we

pulled the cord here you can see right

here I put duct tape on it just to get

it going just so we could test it and

see if the Johnson actually started and

it did but right here it just came

frayed apart so the heat again the heat

really damaged it luckily we have an

extra one here so I am about to replace

that we're going to start by removing

these three bolts

quick little tip this was very difficult

to do for some people they might have to

take this whole unit off we duct-taped

the end of this line to the end of this

fed it through here while Michael was

holding this and then with the tickle

stick

I had to jam it through here because

this 90-degree angle right here it's

very difficult to feed this through but

we successfully did it so now time to

tie the knot

our friend Georgia on Cabernet

recommended this little spot to get

fresh produce the Haitian market okay so

we just paid for by ten days unlimited

data for 300 pesos here at all teas this

place is easy to find you just go to the

docks

The Blueprint City dogs not the marina

you walk straight up the street till you

get to 27 day for Brera which is the

busiest street you can't miss it motor

by explained everywhere this place is on

the right let's see how it works

michael has been hard at work she's gone

through this whole area here where all

the food was totally cleaned it up we

got just we just did some provisioning

today found a sweet market got a bunch

of vegetables now to reorganize the

portside storage

it didn't work for those guys either how

does he do it

ha ha so Michaels been hard at work we

took this off clean underneath it you

can see there's nothing in here it's all

out here everything why don't you tell

him about our discovery on pesos we

exchanged at the airport ha ha yeah

so I read on TripAdvisor that a good

spot to exchange our dollars for pesos

would be the booth just after the

customs counter coming through the

airport at puerto plata there we got an

exchange rate of 41 pesos to one US

dollar sounds pretty good right except

for the current exchange rate is closer

to 50 to 1 and in looper on today we

randomly stopped in somewhere that

advertised the exchange currencies euros

dollars pesos Swiss francs I don't know

a bunch of stuff and we got a rate that

was forty nine point six something

anyway really close to 50 to 1 so we

exchanged about a hundred dollars there

so next time we'll no stay away from the

tourist traps it's time it's time to

jump in

lupa Ron they call it pooper on the

visibility is not great

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okay so one big factor is the style of

anchoring and I use the exact same style

in Key West when I left the boat for

about five months as well it's called

bohemian mooring and in this episode I

demonstrate exactly how it is that I do

that it was very important to use the

same anchoring technique here because

it's a very tight mooring you don't have

much room to swing and so basically when

you anchor this way it's as if you're on

a mooring ball and we are exactly where

we were and with not much room to swing

in either direction so that was that was

a big big factor another big move was

who we had around us so on our port side

is a couple who's been instrumental in

changing the perception of loop run

making it a safer place for cruisers

reporting any theft any people getting

on boats on unauthorized they are very

close to us and I think that had a big

impact

another good factor was having cabernet

on our port side they were taking

pictures looking at our boat they even

helped us get it scraped a couple months

into us being gone so we had activity

you know we had people around who are

looking after our boat and in her

defense both could be on our port side

depending on how we swing cuz I know she

said both of those guys were on our port

side

well when the trade winds come right but

at this moment so another big factor

was where we're at I mean with our depth

we couldn't go just anywhere there

weren't many areas in the harbor that

were available originally we'd consider

tying up and Love Canal which is

undisputedly the safest place in Lupron

Harbor where all the boats go when a

hurricane is coming through so tying up

in the mangroves back there would have

been the best security but then we heard

multiple accounts of when your boat is

closer to land it's much more accessible

and thus much more likely for somebody

to board unauthorized therefore we

decided that being out in open waters

would be the better option and we would

just go with a lot of anchors to make

sure that she stayed stable and wasn't

going anyway right so also a big element

was luck because the very first morning

that we woke up on shock Matei a boat a

catamaran who is a good friend of ours

and it happens to all of us but it went

he went sliding by us pretty quick well

that was the second morning I'm sorry

the first morning he swung and just kind

of kissed us and actually bumped into us

and I was able to jump off of my boat

onto his pretty quickly pretty easily

and then I helped him move his bones

reset anchor so you know this no telling

what shocked Mateo was going through

while we were gone we also heard that at

least one boat a month and earlier in

the season there was two to three boats

a month that were chafing usually hooked

to mooring balls the ones that had been

there for a while and the lines were

breaking and they were just going free

drifting back so part of that was luck

because none of them drifted into us we

also took that into account when we

anchored here and from the trade winds

you know so to the east of us there's

really only one boat and then there's

mangroves so there's not a lot of boats

that that were upwind of us

the most common wind which is the trade

winds from the east so that was a big

factor which was luck but we again

didn't put ourselves behind a whole

bunch of boats for that reason so yet to

be fair it worked out in our favor but

this is kind of the don't try this at

home style there was a lot of

consideration that played into lupron

itself being a great hurricane hole as

far as the rest of the Caribbean is

concerned and definitely affordable

option for us however I'm sure that

there have been many people who have

left their boats here that weren't quite

so lucky so here's some of the reasons

why we did it but not necessarily

suggesting that it's the best option for

everyone these are the tales of Bob

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boa boa pee

vo a baby

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