Dominican 2017

Tui flight departed over two hours late from Punta Cana, due to some extra security measures. They had to unload all the luggage, screen it again and load it back into the aircraft which took some time..

As the flight also arrived about two hours late I didn't have any extra time at Brussels airport, just barely made it to the Finnair flight to Finland.. Which of course was also half an hour late, due to loading some unusual cargo..

Ah well, finally at home. It's cold and dark here..

Spent the last morning on the beach, returned the car and now on the way towards Europe..

The purpose of our visit to Samana area was to go seeing humpback whales on a tour operated by the marine biologist Kim Beddall and her crew. The whales migrate every year to Samana Bay for reproduction, and there should be massive amount of them in the bay. Well, should.

During the trip today we were unlucky and saw exactly zero whales, not even a single one. It was their first trip today as the whale season is just beginning, so I guess there are not too many whales in the bay yet. They already had confirmed earlier sightings though. Well, they are wild animals which are hard to predict, so sometimes it's normal to not see anything. At least we got free tickets for second tour, which are valid forever. :P

After the whal...err..oceanwatching trip we just drove down to La Romana area again, staying one night in the same apartment where we started our journey in the country. Time to repack all the stuff so they are suitable packed for the flights, spend tomorrow on the beach and then fly home..

Here's a video of some mountain road driving yesterday: https://youtu.be/ZqSJSCnqLa4. Too bad Gopro lens seems to flatten the hills a bit, the ascents and descents are not looking so steep on the video as they were. Traffic here is relatively crazy, with nobody following any rules and small motorcycles everywhere..

The roads here are bad, so even small distances take time. Our drive from Sosua to the next destination Samana was just some 200-300km, but we managed to use the entire day. Although we stopped a couple of times on the way, to admire (and curse) the stormy sea. Swimming in the sea would be extremely dangerous at the moment due to the huge waves, so no swimming today.

Just before sunset we reached our next accommodation, a sailing boat in Samana marina. The boat was once used to cross the Atlantic Ocean by the current owner's uncle, but now it stays here in Samana and is used for short cruises nearby, in addition to serving as the home of the owner and as an airbnb rental room. :)

Alex, the boat owner is not home today so we have the entire boat for ourself. Iryna is working and I sit on the deck in the moonlight, listening to the sea and the small sounds of boats moving in their moorings. Not a bad place to sleep a night. :)

I guess the pictures will come late, as the internet here is not working very well.

Today the weather was a bit more decent, so we visited the nearby waterfalls, 27 Charcos de Damajagua. It's a series of 27 waterfalls, where you can have a guided tour and jump and slide down all the waterfalls. We did a shorter version of just seven waterfalls though, as we arrived there quite late and doing all the 27 would have required more time. That was fun and partly scary, due to the strong water currents. :)

All diving operations are still suspended on the area due to stormy weather, and also boating is forbidden by the government until further notice. I asked the whale watching company if our tour on 15th would be canceled, but obviously their boat is big enough to be allowed to the sea. Besides, the tour will be in Samana Bay and not open sea, so it should be a bit more calm. The company warned us that it will be rough and wet though, but they have had whale sightings already and are not canceling the trip, it's their first one on this whale season which begins in January. :)

Tomorrow we should move on from here to Samana, and our next night we will sleep on a sailing boat in Samana marina. :)

Iryna had to work during the day today, so basically nothing was done until late afternoon. The weather wasn't really appealing either with strong winds and vertical rain so being inside didn't really matter. When she got here work done and the weather turned better we just gained some sun tan on the beach, had dinner, picked up our laundry and so on.

The weather is still far from perfect, with cloudy sky, stormy sea and occasional rain showers. Due to the rough seas diving is out of question, and hanging on the beach is not too fan either. We spent a while on Sosua beach though, it's a nice long sand beach which was very quiet today, probably due to the weather.

During the afternoon we drove up the mountains, on the "Ruta Panoramica" road between Sosua and Santiago. Some nice panoramic views and a lot of bad quality roads, nothing that special.

We also moved from our one night rural apartment to a completely different place, a brand new looking house on the other side of Sosua. The owners are a French couple, and seems like they have moved to retire in Dominican Republic or so, and built a new house here, including an attached guest house which they rent on Airbnb. They seem to be nice and the house is really beautiful and new. Not a bad place to stay. :)

The big, hot city with chaotic traffic was not really appealing for us, so we just checked out the now opened Cathedral of Santa María la Menor, had some breakfast and departed the city towards north.

Just around the sunset we arrived to the city of Sosua on the northern coast and checked into our basic, rural house where we just have a private room in the house of the host family. It has been raining all the day while we drove through the country, and the weather on the north coast is not forecasted to improve much in the coming days. That's a bit bad, the sea is so rough that we are definitely not able to dive here.. At least not in the sea.

Today we packed our bags in the car and move some 150km to west, to the capital Santo Domingo. The huge city was the first European settlement in the Americas, the historic center still containing many buildings built during that era. For example, there's a cathedral for which the first stone was laid by Diego Columbus, the son of Christoffer Columbus. The cathedral was closed today though, due to El Dia de Reyes (Three Kings Day) holiday. Well, we have time to visit it tomorrow.

In the afternoon we drove to La Isabela airport, the smaller one of the two international airports of the city, and met there our airclub contact Moises. Both of us took a flight with their Tecnam P2002 aircraft, me flying myself and Iryna with Moises being the pilot. He was a young guy, just 19 but flown a year already, studying to be a commercial pilot and had flight instructor license too.

I had never touched any Tecnam, so it was a slight challenge to fly one from a foreign airport in a foreign airspace. The end result was surprisingly good though, the takeoff and landing were both almost perfect. The aircraft was nice to handle, not so different from our club's smaller Diamond DA20, and it actually had the same Rotax engine.

Flight video

Today we did one more dive, a navigation practice. The dive was done from the beach and the visibility in shallow water was very bad today, so the compass actually had some use.. This dive completed the five dive course, so we are now both certified Advanced Open Water Divers. The certification cards will follow by mail. :)

That's pretty much it for the day. Beginning of the day was spent reading the dive course books and evening by having a good dinner on a beach terrace with views on the sunset. Tomorrow morning our journey continues towards Santo Domingo, the first European settlement in the Americas.