Lounging in Luperon Lindsay McRory July 27, 1996 Life passes easily in Luperon. It's hard to tell exactly where the time goes, but it's been enjoyable. The final damage toll from the rogue freighter was minimal. Traveler escaped with some fiberglass and minor topside damage. The term "minor" here is used to mean non-structural damage. The boat is still safe to live in. If Traveler was a little-used yacht club showpiece the damage would be categorized as devastating and more than a dozen lawyers would be involved by now. Five anchors in total were lost. After three days of dredging the harbor by dinghy with homemade grapnel hooks, three anchors were recovered. Another anchor was recovered by a diver. One is still down there. And we're still taking the toll from our brush with Hurricane Bertha. Of the 23 boats that hit the mangroves for shelter, only two picked up rats. How to catch a boat rat makes fairly intriguing dinner conversation. Methods range from the usual rat traps to complex homemade drowning systems. Interestingly both rats were discovered when they were surprised. They promptly jumped onto the nearest human head, then scurried for safety. The rat traps were quickly laid with an enviable smorgasbord of food ranging from good cheeses to morsels of chicken smothered in fat. In the end, the rat on Hey Driver was cornered and shot with a three-band spear gun. What a mess. I was surprised the spear didn't go through the boat. Rosanante's skipper soon found and cornered that boat's now fat rat in a deck vent, but with no spear gun he panicked and shot the rat with the only thing he had--a can of Raid. The rat didn't care much for having cockroach poison in his face and blindly leaped overboard. Whatever works. We go into Luperon nearly every day to buy fresh fruit and vegetables. If our timing is right we can buy from a truck. If not, we buy from one of the many small open markets. Shopping is a much more cultural affair. Denise knows all of the vendors, and enjoys the trip. Sometimes she breaks up the trip with a ice cream or juice in the park. Luperon is a very safe place, offering protection from both weather and the crime associated with other parts of the Dominican Republic. Yesterday a cruising boat announced over the radio that four dinghies were stolen in as many days in Puerto Plata, a day east of here. There is an underground market for the bigger outboard motors, but some of the more clever criminals figured out that a pair of four-horse outboards are the same as one ten-horse outboard (4+4=10 hp so then 10+10 must be 25 hp). It's hard to argue with that kind of logic. No outboard is safe. Kita and Wes enjoy all the attention they have been receiving here. They have been adopted by a few of the boats and spend their time getting spoiled silly. Other boats with older cruising kids develop an extremely protective attitude towards the younger kids. They form a little pact and take care of each other, whether at the beach or in town. There is a small boat club a short dinghy ride away. It's the cruisers' hangout. Bad weather in the Caribbean has held up about a dozen boats that had planned to be farther south by now. It doesn't look like things will lighten up for eastbound boats for at least another 10 days. With some new tropical waves around Africa that show promise of developing into tropical storms that head this way, it could be even longer. But there are worse places to be--a lot worse.