Luperón, Dominican Republic

In mid-March this year, the S/V Wanderlust crew cruised into our fourth country on our epic sailing adventure, the Dominican Republic.

We pulled into Bahía Luperón around midday after an exhausting, but really good overnight 100+ mile sail from the Turks and Caicos Islands. Immediately after securing our lines to our mooring, we took a few minutes to take in our new surroundings, and, in typical Wanderlust fashion, celebrated with an ice cold beer.

The town of Luperón is a small fishing village on the northern coast of the Dominican Republic. This port isn't known for tourism or beautiful beaches, but instead for its safe, calm, and well protected harbor. The Bahia Luperón is a great hurricane hole, and the safest one for hundreds of miles.

The harbor is surrounded by thick mangroves, with lush, green mountains on all sides, which create protection from winds. In the calm harbor, we could hear birds chirping, smell black dirt, and hear cows mooing on the hillsides. The water was calm as glass, but brown and dirty from runoff from surrounding hills and boats packing the harbor.

The lack of current and wind in the bay creates a great hurricane hole, but some pretty questionable water quality. We'd heard, and believed stories about getting sick from contact with the bay water, and decided it was best not to swim (on purpose) in Luperón Harbor.

Upon arrival, we were boarded by the harbor's Comandante, and a few other officials. They asked general questions, took a quick look around the boat, and then declared us cleared. We shared a few Bahamian ginger beers with the friendly officials, and made our way into town to complete the lengthy customs and immigration process.

After check in, we were free to tour Luperón. Of course, we quickly made our way to the nearest beach, Playa Chiquita, for an overdue swim, a little monkeying around, and a coconut hunt with Ruca.

Ben, Ruca and I quickly got to work, learning about the unique natural wonders DR has to offer.

The beaches in the area weren't the white sand, turquoise clear water we'd seen in the Bahamas, but instead had a gold-toned sand and watercolor blue sea. The water's colors varied immensely from the seaweed beds, to the sandy shallows, to the deep channel surrounding the harbor entrance.

The DR is a intensely forested island, and therefore has gorgeous hiking, waterfalls, caves, and other natural wonders. We took full advantage of the extraordinarily manicured hiking paths through the forested cliffs and caves, which led down to a small islet to the ocean, where Ruca couldn't wait to take a swim to cool off.

We'd gotten to know this hidden gem of Luperón, and we liked what we'd found. We enjoyed the friendly cruising community in town, the beaches, hiking, nearby attractions, and the overabundance of Presidente beer and fried chicken. I mean, what's not to love?

We decided to stay a while... a few months in fact. Wanderlust was suffering from a broken anchor platform, and an iffy VHF radio. We needed a safe harbor to make our repairs, and Luperón offered that, along with access to supplies and provisions all at the cheapest prices in the Caribbean.

Ben and I decided that we really couldn't choose a better harbor for Wanderlust, and we settled in for the Caribbean spring.

Thanks for Reading,

Ben, Quinn and Ruca

#destinations #DominicanRepublic