25 June -- 6 July 2009, Luperon, Dominican Republic

25 June 2009 – 6 July 2009

Am adjusting to life in the tropics and am learning to get around and appreciate the Dominican Republic.  Traveling outside of Luperon shows just how small and dirty this town really is, but the practically hurricane-proof harbor, combined with the camaraderie and security that the resident cruising community provides, makes Luperon a great place to spend the summer and early fall of hurricane season.  Christopher Columbus discovered the harbor and provided a detailed written description of it.  But Columbus left quickly because the stagnant water contained marine organisms that eat wooden ships.  Nowadays, the abundant marine life quickly fouls a boat’s bottom and two weeks of barnacle growth is quite hard to scrape off.  The water is full of small creepy-crawlies and it is a shock to climb out of the murky water covered with bugs.  Trips to Puerto Plata, Santiago, and Sosua have taught us to use the public transportation system.  Mass transit works amazingly well here because it is not regulated.  Someday in America, maybe the politicians, the engineers, and the lawyers can take a vacation long enough for regular people to create a cheap, efficient, fast mass transit system like the Dominican people enjoy.  Where the Dominican government does get involved, the results are disastrous.  The high import duties make it quite expensive to buy anything from the United States.  The government probably does this strictly for the money it brings in and then justifies it as protection to local import-substitution industries.  The net result is that a person can live quite cheaply by simply hanging out and letting the days go by, but acquiring the material comforts so common in the United States is impossible for most people.  However, the people here are so happy and helpful that it raises a tremendous suspicion that material wealth may actually cause more problems in a society than it solves.