Dominican Republic (4)

We left Luperon early on the 18th and headed up to El Castille for the day. This is the site that Columbus first chose as the first city of the New World. Many people died here from Malaria and so they moved the remaining inhabitants to Santo Domingo. We had an interesting tour of the site, though little remains. In the 1950’s Spain wanted to send some archeologists to view the site so the dictator at that time ordered the site cleaned up. Something was lost in the translation and the cleanup was done with a bulldozer. We were able to see where Columbus’s house was located as well as the church and the cemetery. The highlight for the girls appeared to be an open grave with the remains of one of the early inhabitants.

It was a good anchorage and even though the snorkeling wasn’t great the girls had a great time being towed around on the tube and shell hunting on the beach. We pulled up anchor while watching a glorious sunset and with Autumn & Mya attempting to capture the “Green Flash” on their video camera. Mya took the helm and appeared to be quite comfortable at the wheel. On route to Puerto Plata and Ocean World Marina, we were treated with the company of some dolphins playing in our bow wake for short while.

Alex’s friends Mya and Autumn were great to have on board during our stay here and we were sad to take them to the airport. All of the girls seem to especially like our time at Ocean World Marina and Marine Park. They made many friends among the staff. This especially worked in their favour with the Dolphin trainers as they were able to have a freebie Dolphin Encounter.
The main language spoken here is Spanish and we appreciated having Autumn assist us with our pronunciations or help us find the right word (she is taking Spanish in school). Many individuals here at the Marine Park speak 3 to 5 languages and some speak up to 7.

We found the Dominican Republic to be quite an interesting place with wonderful nature, amazing history and very friendly people. The D.R. Peso is valued at 32.00 to $1.00 U.S. dollar. The D.R. has been the least expensive place in the Caribbean. One thing that we found amazing is that most of the islands we visited do not grow a lot of their own produce. Puerto Rico, Dominica and the Dominican Republic are the exception to this.

The trip to the Turks & Caicos is about 135 miles and we estimate it will take us about 26 hours. We understand that the diving and snorkeling in the T&Cs and the Bahamas is absolutely amazing and I for one am really looking forward to this.