Captain's Blog Stardate 2009: Regroup

The next two days we laid up in port at Oceanworld in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic. The first day to cure our wounds and the second to cure Mary E’s. We were all beat and really needed rest. The constant salt spray from the day before must have done something to my left eye because everything was a big blur all day. I had a scrape that was burning on my knuckle from catching the fishing rod that was overhead before it fell on us. My palms on both hands were swollen from the pounding on the helm and sore to the touch. I had a blister on the skin between my thumb and index finger from constantly forcing the helm over that was very tender. I forgot about it for a moment and when I went to shake hands with someone I almost when to my knees in pain.

All of us wandering as if in a daze went to the Oceanworld park where we sat, ate a marginally ok lunch while emotionlessly watching a parrot and a seal show.

A few hours passed and we were ready to leave. On our way out, what appeared to be a park representative noticed our wrist bands indicating that we were in the marina. He told us his boss wanted him to show people around the facilities so that we would be aware of what they offered. We told him we were tired and wanted to go back to the boat but he insisted saying he would drive us around in the golf cart. Since we didn’t have to walk we said what the heck, let’s go. What started out as a tour wound up being a coverup for a high pressure sales pitch to buy timeshare property. He tried to make nicey nice conversation with us but none of us were interested and gave him short quick answers. Finally, I was annoyed enough that I point blank told him to forget it, we were brought here under false pretenses and there was no way any of us were interested. Gina put the final kibosh on it when she stood up and said let’s go. He desperately tried one last attempt but to no avail, we wanted out. At least we did get a few free bottles of Mamajuana for our trouble. Bob and I googled what this Mamajuana stuff was, when we found out Cap’n Gina confiscated our bottles and said we couldn’t have any till we reached St. Thomas !

When we got back to the boat Gary Sullivan called us and asked us if we would like him to buy us a lobster dinner. I laughed and said “Sure, when will you be here?” I thought he was kidding but he was serious. He had looked up Oceanworld on the net, reviewed the menu at the Poseidon restaurant and because he felt very bad about our hardship the previous day he wanted to purchase our dinner that evening as a consolation. He called them and made arrangements for us to have dinner at 7 PM. Thank you again Gary but I’m not removing your pictures!

We had a little bit of time so we went for a swim in their big beautiful swimming pool before going up for dinner. After dinner we had a nitecap at the bar where the drinks were unbelievably inexpensive.

The next morning we all felt a bit recuperated and started to assess and repair the damage we had sustained. The kitchen counter cracked and broke on one end. The water tank on the starboard side snapped the holding strap and slid back into the muffler. The whole bank of batteries on the starboard side snapped their hold downs and shifted. Since we lost all power on the starboard side and weren’t exactly sure what was causing it we decided to repower the RayNav and the VHF to the port side. This turned out to be a very good decision. We also thought that the alternator which wasn’t working anymore on the starboard side must have been draining those batteries so we decided that it was necessary to remove the electrical connection from the system. Bilge Monkey Bobby went to work making the necessary repairs and I finished plotting the rest of the courses we would need to make St. Thomas.

Oceanworld Marina