18 September 2009 -- SCUBA in Sosua, DR

Just completed 10 SCUBA dives in the ocean near Sosua, Dominican Republic. The diving was pretty good, but overfishing along the north coast of the Dominican Republic limits the larger species. Noticeably absent are the top predators such as barracuda and sharks. It took ten dives, but on the last one, we saw two large spotted eagle rays and two sea snakes about 3-feet long. The eagle rays were amazing to look at, but the sea snakes were pretty scary.

8 September 2009 -- Trip to Cambiaso

The Luperon harbor is so dirty that Mark prefers to take his boat out to the ocean to clean the bottom every two or three weeks. I went along with him and we decided to make a day trip to the nearby town of Cambiaso. Two months ago I took a spur-of-the-moment kayak trip the five miles east along the coast to Cambiaso. The cluster of small huts sits along a sandy, protected beach amidst tall coconut palm trees and looks like something right out of a movie about the South Pacific. The kayak trip simply whet my appetite for another trip, when I could spend more time. Arriving mid-morning in S/V Markelle, we were barely anchored when we were met by a fisherman sculling an old homemade boat, carrying the local Navy commandante. The Navy guy was wearing U.S. issue tan polyester slacks, with a worn-out regulation belt and a fairly white t-shirt, with nothing else. He was barefoot, bareheaded, and his smile showed he was almost bare of any teeth. He wanted paperwork, but since it was only a daysail and we would not spend the night, he was happy to let us in with the understanding that we would eat lunch in the town. We walked along the beach and amidst the huts, while the fisherman returned the Navy guy and started fixing our lunch. Two hours later, we ate three fish. They were only gutted and then deep-fried with the heads and skin still on. A bowl of white rice came with the fish and we sat in dirty plastic chairs in the shade between small huts, while an obese women shelled almonds and a rooster pecked through the almond shells looking for missed pieces of almonds. She had eight children and most of them were playing naked in the dirt at our feet. Then several barefoot men drug up a warped scrap of plywood and started playing dominoes on it. Somehow, three teenage women arrived with their parents as pimps. It is odd to see teenage girls living in dirty huts with long clean fingernails, clean modern, skimpy clothing, and cellphones. Maybe they only have a short period of life to attract someone and they overdo it, because their mothers had definitely slid downhill quite fast. The idyllic, National Geographic setting turned quite weird with the realization that these people were trying to prostitute their daughters right in front of the whole village. Further investigation showed that some tourist charter boats stop there and the modernization brought in by these tourist operators was addicting these people to the lure of easy money. The idyll was destroyed further with the meeting of two Jehovah's Witnesses on a recruiting mission. Time to go. We paid for the food, then woke the Navy guy up and told him we were leaving. If only the missionaries and the perverted tourists would stay home, maybe Paradise will survive.