Nov
28 2014
Greetings,
We had a
happy Thanksgiving aboard Second Star. It started with a very pleasant passage
from Las Salinas across the bay to Barahona. There was a rolling swell but it
wasn’t too big and it was a following sea which is so much more comfortable.
The weather was beautiful. Capt. Johne and I got to see a sperm whale resting
on the surface. We could see part of its back and every so often it would blow.
The book said they dive deep then they’ll rest on the surface for a while to
catch their breath before diving again. When we first saw it we thought it
might be a big log because it was just something big floating in the water up
ahead. But as we got closer and could see the shape better, and see when it
blew, we could tell it was in fact a whale.
When we
arrived in Barahona the officials came out right away to check our paper work.
We thought we had everything in order but as it turns out when we’d last
renewed our visas we had thought they’d done them for three months but they’d
only done a one month extension. So we were, technically, in the country
illegally. The Immigration official started to get his back up and it looked
for a moment like it might be quite expensive for us to get out of trouble. But
Johne is VERY good at being diplomatic in these situations and with some good
schmoozing and ass kissing the official turned from foe to friend and has
helped us get back on the right side of Dominican law.
After that we
had an awesome dinner of turkey sandwiches with fresh cranberry sauce that I
had made, a wonderful salad that Janet made and mince and pumpkin pies for dessert.
We all had fun trying to explain to Alexis what Thanksgiving is all about and
why it’s on the fourth Thursday in Nov instead of on a date. For me
Thanksgiving has always been a time for family to get together over way too
much food so it was fun to share our meal last night with our growing Second
Star family.
