Ceiling And Visibility Unlimited

5-3 Our day started super early, at 1:30am. We got ready and started to pull up anchor for our first Mona passage crossing west bound. It was of course dark, and nothing can be easy. The bridle and all the chain was covered in mud, so I was going slow to rinse as it came up. Thankfully, Cole woke up and came out to help. I was grateful for his help because when we got to about 30 feet something weird was happening with the chain. It was going different directions and really straining the chain and windlass. We finally realized it was a big line wrapped around the chain and anchor. We were able to get the anchor out of the water and once Cole started to push some of the muck off the anchor the line slipped off. It took longer then normal, putting us on our way at 2:15. I sat up front and watched for lines for a bit and then let Cale take over and tried to get some sleep. I didn’t sleep great, but got some rest. About 5:30 or 6 I went up and relieved Cale. He was about to go back downstairs when we started to see dolphins. There were sooo many. He rushed down and woke up the kids. They stayed with us for about an hour. At first there were a lot of smaller ones, then it seemed like they got tired but lots of them stayed with us. It was awesome!
We decided to pull into Mona Island briefly. On the way in the water was so clear. It was 50 feet deep and you could see to the bottom. It was a beautiful blue color. It was absolutely amazing. There were tons of birds flying all around and we even saw a turtle go by the boat, it was just floating along. There is one mooring ball, which was open. We were all super hot so jumped in. Cale, Cole and Kelsey were in the water first. It was about 1 minute and they started yelling shark, shark! Soon, Cale was saying it was coming up and to swim back to the boat. I’ve never seen Kelsey swim so fast, Cade too. I will never forget Kelsey’s little arms swimming at top speed. Cole just leisurely was swimming along away from the boat until we forced him to come closer. The kids all got back on the boat, but slowly we all got in to see the shark. It was about 50 feet deep and it looked about 3 or 4 feet long, so our guess is they were pretty big. Soon, there were 2 and then 3 and 4, and then a huge ray and a grouper. Once the sharks started to be more interested in us we were out. It was a pretty surreal experience.
The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. I even got in a nap. I am grateful we had good weather and a calm ride. We did have to motor the whole way, which was a bummer, but at least it was calm.
We are in Punta Cana, at Cap Cana marina. It is really fancy and nice here. I wasn’t expecting it to be like this at all. We had to wait for all the branches of government representatives to come check us in. They actually boarded our boat. We had to sign forms and then two of them walked into every room. It was very different then any other check in we have had. We walked and figured out our rental car and then drove out of the marina area to the Blue Mall. It was a very fancy mall area that caters to all the resorts. I just get the sense this island is divided by halves and have not.

5-4
We had an amazing day exploring Santo Domingo. It was a 2.5 hour drive. Our first stop was the temple. The grounds were beautiful. We talked to some senior missionaries and a member of the temple presidency. They said they would make sure we could do temple work if we came back. As always we struggled in the car, but then we rocked it once we were exploring the town on foot. Kelsey got out of the car not wanting to keep going, but rallied and did awesome. A cute little grandma lady helped us get parked just right looking out from the living room window of her house. We had a tour guide approach us shortly after getting parked.
We opted to keep going because I thought the kids would do better if we did a Cho Cho tour (bus), since Kelsey was struggling. Another tour guide approached us and we ended up using him. He said just $40 for an hour and a half. It ended up being closer to 3 or 4 hours. We explored the whole area with him. We started at a little souvenir shop for the bathroom and he taught us about the stones in the country, the amber and
Then, we stopped by and learned about the gargoyles. We saw the 1st catholic church in the Americas, the first road in the Americas and the Clle de Damas, where Christopher Columbus and his wife’s ladies walked. Also, Christopher Columbus’s house.
So much history. We ended up in a jewelry store and Cale convinced me to buy a ring. It was way more expensive then I’d usually go for, but hopefully it will be a lasting memory. I love that it’s from actual stones on the island that were created with the creation of the island.
We did an audio tour of the catholic church. I liked the story of a huge picture of St Antigua. The picture was on a boat that was ship wrecked in the Virgin Islands and the picture was rescued and brought to this church. We also got to make chocolate bars and saw the whole process. 1. Dry beans. 2.Separate shell from bean. 3. Grind them up. And separate the butter/ fat out of the bean. 4. Combine the bean, shell ground up, and sugar to make chocolate liquid. 5. Mix for 38 hours. 6. Pour into bars. We all got to add in our toppings.
So many neat facts and so much history. We had dinner with our guide. He said he makes pretty good money. The average (not dr or higher paid professional) makes about $400-500/month. He makes $1500 to 2000 per month doing his tours. He also speaks 4 languages- English, Spanish, German. He was an impressive guy and had a lot of knowledge. He said he likes to ask questions and learn. Pretty amazing. He made sure to video us for social media.
It was an awesome day. The city is very diverse and vibrant. The people are also warm, and diverse and fun and silly. At one point, a bunch of girls were yelling at Cole saying ‘we love you.’ We asked what people things of Americans. He said your babies first words are “mom” or “dad. ” He said let me put it this way, babies here say, “nike,” meaning they are obsessed with the US. We almost finished up but forgot where we parked. Our guide helped us, but I think we would have figured it out. The traffic leaving was insane. At one point, there was a semi coming right at us as we were merging with 4 lanes, one of which was traffic. Driving on the wrong side of the road trying to come over. It was insane. Motorcycles everywhere. I’m so grateful we didn’t hit someone or something. At least in most other countries there are some general rules and courtesies. Here it seems to be everyman for himself.
It was a long drive back. We really want to make it back and go inside the temple, but have decided to wait and do it from Samana.
The ride back was long but we made it.

Some interesting facts from the tour: 40 million years ago. 50 million years compressed. Lots of amber they mine. Dolls in Dominican have no faces because there is not one type of Dominican person.
Haiti- 50,000 slaves 450,000 slaves
1844 1st revolution from Haiti
Dominica- was a priest tried to save the battle people.
Gargoyles- Latin word for throat
3 million in Santo Somingo
14 million in Dominican

Touristguide31 insta- our guide
Esta toda bien- ta to- a new phrase we learned

5-5 Our number one goal was to figure out our despatcho, which is the navy approving you to move from one port to another port. They will only do it between 6 am and 6 pm and once you do it you have 1 hour to leave. We had hoped to get an exception, so we could leave at 2 in the morning but we quickly found out that wasn’t going to work. We decided to have them come at 4:30 pm so we could leave at 5. We don’t love the idea of going at night and we will have to slow down or we will get there too early to go through the channel and before Puerto Marina Bahia opens.
We decided to go fill our propane tanks and check out some shopping. We ended up at a huge store. Sadly, we don’t really have much more room for food. We then were shocked to see an Ikea. We had to look around just because then we had lunch there before grabbing a few groceries at the store right next to Ikea. We stopped at Prop-ogas on our way home to fill tanks. It was so easy, literally just drive through like a gas station. We came back and I prepped food and we returned the car. The armada officer came at 4:30 and checked us out. It was calm leaving the dock. Immediately after getting out of the channel it got really rough. Huge waves, but they were pretty far apart so we weren’t slamming into them too bad. Cale had marked the coordinates of the safest passage so we followed that and if got better pretty quickly.