Puerto Plata and Ocean World Marina, Dominican Republic

December 17, 2010 Puerto Plata

It is still dull and cool, but not actively raining today. It has rained for the past three days.

We took a stroll outside of Ocean World Resort and had lunch at Chris & Mattie’s Restaurant and bar. Lunch was delicious, especially the appetizer of peppercorn shrimp, served with garlic cheese toast. Prices were reasonable and service was great. We learned that Chris is originally from Brandon, Manitoba, and is married to Mattie, a Dominican. Our server was their daughter Jenifer, who was educated in Manitoba.

Yesterday was planned as a quiet day with Susann catching up with some baking.

Commandante Ramon

At about 1pm, Commandante, Ramon (naval officer in charge of this harbor) knocked on our boats and invited us to a naval party, celebrating their Patrone. We had seven minutes to change and be ready. It’s amazing what we can do when there is free booze and food being offered.
It’s a small world! We were accompanied by Hazel and Bill, a Scottish couple that we knew from Loblolly, our marina, just outside Port St. Lucie. They are now living here in Puerto Plata aboard their boat.
The party was in an open sided structure, and the band was so loud that you could feel the vibration in your chest, or whatever you happen to be holding. To quote Hazel, “there is a lot of eye candy, especially the younger ones dressed in white naval dress uniforms”.

The Dominican people are very friendly and have a great passion for life; this was evident with their music and dancing. We were introduced to the who’s who in the Navy, with one Commander taking a particular shine to Alan, perhaps it was his military background...

Towards the end of the party, he insisted that we four Canadian visitors get up on the dance floor and dance the Marengue. It is an understatement to say we were the entertainment. All the Dominicans had a good chuckle as Tim and Alan thought that hopping from one foot to another was the requisite step; Jan and I at least had a bit more hip action going, but our marengue would not make any Dominican proud. We white folks definitely lack rhythm. Regardless, we enjoyed the hospitality of these kind and generous people, and a good time was had by all.

Wednesday was laundry day in the morning and grocery shopping in the afternoon. The marina has laundry facilities where it costs $3 each to wash and dry. There is an attendant on duty who will do your laundry if so desired.
The marina concierge calls the grocery store and they send a van to take you to the store and back. It was clean and well stocked. Local products are very reasonable, and all the produce is fresh and inexpensive. Fresh pineapple was less than $2, papaya $1, three romaine lettuce were less than $2. All in all, it was very reasonable and great quality.


Dinner at Ocean World

Casino a Pool

Ocean World Resort and Marina offers a pool (not heated), patio bar, casino, fine dining and a Vegas style show…Bravisimo. For $119 per couple, we had a three course surf and turf dinner in the dining room, complimentary beer and rum drinks during dinner and the show and tickets for the show. It was a great evening and great value. The young male performers were very handsome and the female dancers were beautiful……more eye candy!

Upon arrival at the theatre, each guest is personally escorted to their seat by one of the cast members. The music and costumes were excellent, but with all those young handsome hunks, who was looking.

 

Today, the four of us took a City Tour with Jeffrey #1, our English guide. Our first stop was at Penderosa Seafood for lunch, where you select your own lobster from the tank.

Other stops included a visit to the Brugal rum factory where we tasted the different rums, and were introduced to a native digestive drink by the name of Mama Whama. It is a mixture of rum and wine, poured into a bottle of special bark shavings and herbs which is left for a few days for the flavors to meld.

We stopped on top of a hill for a photo op of the city, and were promptly approached by some local youngsters, offering wild flowers. They spoke some English and each was anxious to push their way to the front and introduce themselves. They were expecting a cash handout of course.

Stop three was to see local cigars being hand rolled., where Jan rose to the occasion and enjoyed a small vanilla flavored cigar. Somehow, I think she might have been somewhat influenced by the rum at Brugal.

Alan and Tim’s wallets took a hit in the jewellery store, where Jan and I selected gifts for our upcoming birthdays. Amber and larimar are semi precious gems, native to the Dominican. Our final stop was a visit to Fort San Filipe.

Time was running out, since we had an invite to fellow sailors, Tom and Judy’s boat for happy hour cocktails.

It was a good day, though somewhat commercial. We were hoping to see more of the countryside, but ended up on the commercial circuit for the “gringos”. At least we did our part to stimulate the local economy.



Provost, Turks and Caicos to Ocean World, Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic.

Once again, we were blessed with reasonable seas and winds for our twenty two hour crossing from Provost to Puerto Plata. We departed Provost shortly after dawn, with flat cal seas, but the sun rising into our eyes for a while. It was calm for the 40 mile run to Cockburn Harbor on South Caicos Island, where we had to do our out clearance with Customs and get a despacho (out clearance papers). It was simple, with the entire transaction done right on the dock.

With the current weather conditions holding for the next twelve hours, we opted to head directly to Ocean World, rather than staging from Sandy Cay. This meant arriving at Ocean World Marina in the dark, but capitalizing on the last of the reasonable weather window. We are comfortable with an instrument approach and studied the chart and guide directions in advance. Unfortunately, some of the lit bouys making the channel into Ocean World were not lit, which made life somewhat challenging. We made it in safely with the help of our searchlights and radar and were greeted by night security who helped us tie to the fuel dock, where we rolled all night due to ocean surge.



Fuel Dock

 In the morning the dock master helped fuel Lamb Chop, then took us to do our in clearances with Customs and Immigrations.

Ocean World staff is very helpful and friendly, and the only negative here is the roll in the harbor as a result of the constant ocean swell. Apparently they are in the process of engineering a solution to the problem.


Marina Building