dominican republic
This season has been the most difficult one so far. We've had lots of things break on the boat since November - at least 17 things (yes, I've been keeping count). The weather has been making it very difficult to travel, especially south (the direction we want to go). There haven't been a whole lot of friends for the girls.
It has been hard on all of us. We've had countless discussions on our plans and future with the boat. The main question being - what are we going to do? We thought we'd be a lot further south by now, but the weather made travel nearly impossible for us. When we got to Turks and Caicos we thought we'd be there a week, maybe two, and then continue towards Grenada.
We ended up stuck in Turks and Caicos for almost a month fixing things and waiting for good weather. We were getting tired of waiting. We had two options (1) wait longer and hope the weather would clear up to give us a chance to get south, or (2) leave soon and head back to the Bahamas.
Finally, it was time to get moving! Of all the Caribbean countries we've been to Turks and Caicos has the nicest, friendliest people we've ever met. We were a little sad to leave, but it was definitely time.
In all our journeys (over 14 countries) there are only two that I said I never wanted to go back to - (1) St. Lucia and (2) Dominican Republic. I am 99% sure the Dominican Republic is where Olivia got a virus that caused her to have an allergic reaction to cold (info in this post). That is not something I wanted to go through again.
Alas, the Dominican Republic is where we were heading. There was just a slight break in the weather to get there. Not ideal weather, but it was the best we had seen in a long time. It was a rough ride. Definitely the most uncomfortable passage we've been on since we've been on the boat. Everything was soaked and salty.
Braden and I barely got any sleep, but the girls didn't have that problem.
This was such a beautiful sight after the night we had. We've been out the Eastern Caribbean for so long I forgot how mountainous all these countries are.
