Cruising Report On Dominican Republic

Published 17 years ago, updated 5 years ago

Sailing up from the Caribbean islands, going west to Jamaica and Honduras, we decided to visit the southern coast of the Dominican Republic.

The first stop sailing west from Puerto Rico was the beautiful and modern marina Casa De Campo, about 3 miles east from La Romana. The very well protected and safe marina has an Italian Manager and the assistance and service are excellent, with all you expect from a good marina, including wireless internet on the dock. It is a port of entry and to clear it is very easy. All the autorities come directly to the yacht called from the marina office, in half a day all is done. To clear in, in February 2007, we paid USD120. It is not very cheap, but if you do it yourself, you spend more or less the same, including taxi and time.

We paid 1 US dollar per foot per day for our sail yacht JANCRIS that is 56 ft. 10% less is the rate for one week. There we spend a couple of days relaxing and visiting the luxurious villas and gardens with our bike. The next stop was in the new marina in Boca Chica. The marina is small and very different from Casa De Campo and we were surprised to see they have the same price. The manager offered us a strong mooring just a few meters from the dock and the possibility to park our tender in the safe place in the marina for ten US Dollar a day. Wireless Internet and showers of course included. The guy from the marina restaurant is very helpful and can do a taxi service to go to the supermarket and to visit the old town in Santo Domingo.

From Boca Chica, we sailed with a good southeasterly wind the 60 miles to go to Las Salinas. Las Salinas is inside a big bay called La Caldera, that offers a good and comfortable anchorage. The best place to anchor is in front of the Hotel Salinas where the very friendly owner is happy to help sailors. In front of the Hotel, there is a pontoon where it is possible to moor the boat if the draft is less than 8 ft. The prices are attractive, more or less 10 cent. per foot per day, including electricity and water.

We preferred to leave JANCRIS at anchor, the bottom is good holding and it is possible to leave the tender at the hotel’s dock for free. Las Salinas from this year is a port of entry, so we cleared out from there. We did the formalities in one full day, and we pay 100 US dollars.

For our dog Trudy that travels with us, we had no problem.

Good wind

Alfredo & Nicoletta Giacon

s/y JANCRIS

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