By Friday morning of last week, I was feeling quite ship-shape. My chainplates were reinvigorated, and the deck pass-through did not leak in the three days of tropical rain. Andrew had climbed the mast earlier that morning for the last minute, full rig-check, and she passed muster. Andrew and Leslie were cheerful, repeating over and over again how excited they were to get back on anchor over clear blue water. All we had to do now was complete our harbor check out processes, and we would be ready to depart Saturday morning at high tide.
Not According to Plan
Leslie went below to get her normal Friday-workday in. Andrew was about to cast off to the immigration office when we heard a large “fart” coming from my starboard side.
“Sonrisa?!" Andrew says.
My eyes go wide. “It wasn’t me!”
We look overboard and find that Smirk (the inflatable paddleboard) had met his untimely deminse.
“Oh, no," I said, “Don’t tell Leslie.”
Andrew sighs. He knows that when Leslie finds out, she will be sad and also try to solve this problem.
Grin looks overboard, too. “Yep, I knew he was a deflatable.”
Grin is very smug about his own hard-body, and so when “deflatable” Smirk joined our crew, he had doubts.
“This is all very sad," Andrew says.
But, he had to go. So, he left Smirk floating in the mangrove tea and headed to the taxi waiting at the top of the dock.
Four hours later...
Port IS CLOSED! No EXIT FOR YOU, SONRISA
I hear the approach of flipflops on the stairs, thuds on the wooden dock, leading through the mangrove tunnel. Andrew ducks to avoid a low mangrove branch and appears before me.
But this looks perfect!
“Checked out and ready to depart, Captain!" I say.
But instead of meeting my enthusiasm, Andrew growls.
“Can’t leave, Sonrisa. The port is closed.”
“Closed! But why?”
“High winds.” Andrew climbs aboard and slips below to deliver the bad news to Leslie. ...at least a portion of the bad news.
Leslie, too, was sad that we cannot catch what looked to be a perfect weather window. She climbed the companionway, stretched and looked behind me. “What are they talking about! High winds! It’s glass in here.” This was strictly true. There wasn't a ripple behind me. This comment caused both Andrew and I to grimmace. “Perfect for a paddleboard, I guess." Leslie says as she climbs onto my side deck.
Andrew smacks his head. Leslie looks to board Smirk and finds him in his indisposed state. “Oh no, Smirk! Ooooh no! Can you fix him?"
Andrew sighs. “Maybe. I have glue, but its his seam.”
The thing we all know about deflatables is: if they get a hole, that’s easy enough to patch. But if the seam-glue goes, then it becomes a constant battle to try to glue it back up. You fix one seam blow only to push the leak further down the seam-line.
Leslie sits on my cabin top looking down at Smirk with despair. “I had really hoped to get at least two years out of him!” “Deflatable” paddleboards are practically disposable in tropical salt water environments - like everything made of rubber. We are not sure why, even Leslie’s Goretex foul weather boots that she had used approximately zero times in the course of our trip melted into sludge after riding Tanzania in one of my cupboards.
This decidedly does NOT look perfect.
As expected, Leslie turns around, marches below and begins an internet based hunt for a replacement Smirk. What are the chances she can find this replacement at all, let alone within 24 hours. It isn't like just poppin' down to the paddleboard store.
“I have to try, Sonrisa. I've been dreaming about paddleboarding over clear Bahamian waters for at least a year now.”
The Paddleboard Mission
Where would one find a paddleboard someone is willing to sell on short notice in Luperon, Dominican Republic? You wouldn’t. Leslie tried googling paddleboards in the nearby bigger city of Puerto Plata, but came up empty handed. Maybe, just maybe, down the street in Cabarete? Cabarete is known for wind surfing, kite boarding, and in general beautiful beach fun. Earlier this year, Andrew had taken their friends’ son Ethan to Cabarete for crash course in wind surfing.
Leslie googled places that rent paddleboards in that area and found a place that offered its WhatsApp number. She texts, and miracles upon miracles, someone responds to say YES! They had decided to move out of the paddleboard rental market and wouldn’t you know they have one singular paddleboard sitting in their shed with Leslie’s name on it!
“Now, the only remaining problem is that we are two+ hours away and we have no car.”
This, too, turned out to be no problem.
For reasons Leslie still cannot fathom, Liquid Blue fired up a separate WhatsApp convo title “The Paddleboard Mission,” added Roberto and enlisted his taxi assistance in shuttling Leslie’s new paddleboard (Smirk II) from Cabarete to Luperon the very next morning.
“I can hardly believe my luck, Sonrisa!” Leslie said as she waited the two hours for Roberto to arrive. “We will have a paddleboard aboard in time for us to sail off tomorrow morning.”
All Dressed Up With nowhere to go.
Andrew headed back over to the immigration and port offices to try once more for checkout. Alas, the port was still closed. “They said come back tomorrow,” Andrew reported as he flopped onto my salon bench. Leslie’s cheer was not to be deterred, though, and a short while later she rustled Andrew up to help her carry the paddleboard from the marina where she had directed Roberto to drop it off.
Now, where to store it?
They walked to the beach and enjoyed a beer while the restaurant’s plastic chairs blew across the sand around them.
“Okay, admittedly it is a little fiesty out there.” Leslie said, “And it’s blowing directly into the mouth of the exit. Maybe they are worried people will get blown back onto the rocks?”
“It would still be a great passage.” Andrew grumbled.
The port remained closed on Sunday as well.
“I’m calling it,” Andrew said Sunday night when he pulled the forecast. “There is several days of flat calm coming up and then a 40 knot + storm with clocking wind right after that. I don’t think we have enough time to get to an all weather anchorage, and so we’d have to ride that out in a pretty exposed spot after motoring for 48 hours straight.
“Boo-HISS!” we all say.
“Well! That does it!” Leslie throws her paddleboard in the water. “We are paddleboarding the Luperon mangrove swamp for the next week!”
And so it was.
We are still in Luperon.
Leslie is working and writing blog posts.
Andrew is cooking gourmet meals for the cat.
The end.
Alternative Binge Read on Offer
In the meantime, you can enjoy a binge read of Leslie’s catch-up blog posts. She finally finished all the posts about Namibia. If you are in the mood for more Oddgodfrey reading, you can head back over to where Namibia left off in the Spring of 2022! when Leslie found herself without adequate internet and they were “forced” into a road trip through the Namib Desert to find what they needed. Leslie isn’t sure where anyone left off. So here is the latest series she finished off. You can start at the beginning or somewhere in the middle if you have already read to that point.
Start here at Starlink Will Ruin Everything
Next post, run down the mountain tall red sand dunes in Soussouvlei
Next post, play with pink flamingos on sand dunes that fall into the sea on: The Skeleton Coast
Next post feel a lion’s roar inside your very own DNA at: Etosha National Park
(New post!) Next post hunt down sour milk and taste a mysterious culinary treat during the Sour Milk Acquisition Mission.
(New post!) Next post enjoy lunch at our local friend, Mattias’s house
(New post!) And finally, complete a rescue mission in the Namib Desert and return to Andrew and Leslie’s favorite hometown bar the world over on The Road Back to Home Port
Remember the blog format is a bit wonky and if you want to click forward from any one of these links, you have to push “previous post” on the left. It’s annoying and odd, we know. Sorry for that!