Escondido to Samana

February 26, 2014

At 4 a.m., trying to take advantage of the smooth water and low wind, we left Escondido heading towards Samana.  Samana is another stop over on our way to Puerto Rico.  It’s an official “exit” where you checkout with the local government.  We pulled into the harbor at about 9 a.m., not a long trip by any means, but the highlight was another whale sighting.  It was awesome to see!  It’s whale watching season in Samana and we hope to see more.  We did see lots of little boats taking out a lot of tourists to go see the whales.  Whale watching must be big business. 

After we set the anchor, we put D-Time in the water and started off towards shore to “check out” with the local Commandante (the government official).  On our way in a guy named Chico met us with a navy person in his boat saying he usually comes out and does his paperwork on arriving boats, but he wouldn’t make us turn around, we would just take care of the paperwork in town.  We were like, what?  We’ve done the paperwork, we just need to get our passports stamped and check out of the Dominican Republic.  We are met at the Government Dock by Chico and half a dozen navy guys (government guys), none of whom speak any English except Chico (who is NOT navy).  We all walk a block to the local Commandante’s office and we tell them our purpose for being there, to get our passports stamped and checkout.  They take our paperwork from Luperon, enter our passports into their system and spit out another piece of paper for us.  Then they tell us, that will be $10 U.S.  We were like, what?  Luperon Commandante told us not to pay any more money to anyone, we were set to leave the country after we checked out.  We explained this to Chico, who told the navy guys, who decided they had better call in THE Commandante and we were told to sit and wait.  By this time I’m “just give them the $10 and let’s go” but we had to wait.  THE Commandante shows up, we explain what we were told in Luperon, lots more talking amongst the navy people and I’m like “just give them the $10 and let’s get out of here!”  Daniel pulls out a $10 bill and I show it to them, they usher me back to another office, give me the departure piece of paper and say “ok”.  I said, are you going to stamp our passports?  “Yeah, yeah, we will do that at the dock”.  So we walk back to the dock where D-Time was located and there are NO navy people around, no one to stamp our passports – at this point, who cares?  We hop in D-Time and get out of there.  Happy to be leaving and with a bad taste in our mouths about Samana.

We rested a little, did some laundry, and then about 5 p.m. got some diesel and headed off towards Puerto Rico.  It is going to be a long journey to get to Puerto Rico, but I’m ready to put my feet on some U.S. soil.