January was spent in the Dominican Republic where we have a small condo on the Atlantic coast. Last year, when this sailing stuff was very new we managed to go sailing with a geordie guy called Ray, (see earlier posts) but this year he wasn't too well and on top of that his boat needed some things fixing. We were a little disappointed but we visited Luperon to at least have a look round some boats. We had picked three to view, a Beneteau a Morgan and a Lavranos, built in S. Africa.
A guy called Ron took us round the harbour and we spent all morning viewing these boats. From the website all these looked like they were ready to cruise the Caribbean but the reality was very different. The Beneteau and the Morgan were project boats, that is they needed a lot of work to get them ship shape. The Lavranos was the best turned out and very well equipped, but a bit too pricey for us and Jackie wasn't too keen on the cream painted interior. Anyway we don't have the funds in place as yet so this was really just an excercise in what you could get in that price range.
A couple of days later we went back to look at a Peterson that had just arrived on the market, not bad but not us. We're really keen to try and view a Tayana, and we thought we spotted on right up at the entrance to Luperon. We hitched a ride with a guy called Dag and went for a cruise around this boat called September song, and sure enough it was a Tayana 36, but nobody knew who owned her, or if it was for sale. It looked like a nice boat though, to us, very traditional sort of craft.
With our holiday almost at an end we found a sailing school that hired out Lazers, but also ran courses on a little 20ft dingy. It was a bit pricey but we decided to have an hour with a Belgium tutor who had been doing this for 23 years. It was a lot of fun, although very different to our experiences on big yachts. He was very complimentary about our sailing skills, which was nice, and we had perfect weather and seas. But we only had an hour in Cabarete bay, next year we'll do more and try to get the hang of dingy sailing.
Hopefully by the time we get back next year we'll have the money to buy the boat, although I don't know if we'll find it in Luperon. Strange thing is, whilst we were there we tried to google that boat September song but drew a blank. Last week Jackie was browsing and lo and behold there it was on boat listings, although it says shes never been in the tropics, maybe there's two Tayanas called September song. I wrote a song called September song, how weird is that, could this be fate. We mailed the agent but haven't heard back as yet, you never Know she might be waiting just for us, we'll see.
A guy called Ron took us round the harbour and we spent all morning viewing these boats. From the website all these looked like they were ready to cruise the Caribbean but the reality was very different. The Beneteau and the Morgan were project boats, that is they needed a lot of work to get them ship shape. The Lavranos was the best turned out and very well equipped, but a bit too pricey for us and Jackie wasn't too keen on the cream painted interior. Anyway we don't have the funds in place as yet so this was really just an excercise in what you could get in that price range.
A couple of days later we went back to look at a Peterson that had just arrived on the market, not bad but not us. We're really keen to try and view a Tayana, and we thought we spotted on right up at the entrance to Luperon. We hitched a ride with a guy called Dag and went for a cruise around this boat called September song, and sure enough it was a Tayana 36, but nobody knew who owned her, or if it was for sale. It looked like a nice boat though, to us, very traditional sort of craft.
With our holiday almost at an end we found a sailing school that hired out Lazers, but also ran courses on a little 20ft dingy. It was a bit pricey but we decided to have an hour with a Belgium tutor who had been doing this for 23 years. It was a lot of fun, although very different to our experiences on big yachts. He was very complimentary about our sailing skills, which was nice, and we had perfect weather and seas. But we only had an hour in Cabarete bay, next year we'll do more and try to get the hang of dingy sailing.
Hopefully by the time we get back next year we'll have the money to buy the boat, although I don't know if we'll find it in Luperon. Strange thing is, whilst we were there we tried to google that boat September song but drew a blank. Last week Jackie was browsing and lo and behold there it was on boat listings, although it says shes never been in the tropics, maybe there's two Tayanas called September song. I wrote a song called September song, how weird is that, could this be fate. We mailed the agent but haven't heard back as yet, you never Know she might be waiting just for us, we'll see.
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