Luperon, in the Dominican Republic, is indisputably one of the Caribbean\u2019s best hurricane holes. Stephen Maher reports on its unique appeal \u2013 and meets legendary cruising writer Bruce Van SantOver a gassy Cuban draught beer at the quayside bar at Marina Darsena, in March of 2023, I decided to sail to Luperon. My friend and I were stuck in the rundown marina on the outskirts of Varadero, Cuba\u2019s biggest tourist town, waiting to haul out my 1983 Sabre 38 so that we could replace the centreboard cable, which had let go during a rough crossing from the Florida Keys.
\nWe consoled ourselves with trips to the lovely beach and excursions to the lively farm market in Santa Marta, but mostly with beer \u2013 you could buy a 3lt carafe for about a single US dollar.
\nI\u2019d planned to sail to Rio Dulce, in Guatemala, to leave my boat for the next hurricane season. But over drinks at the bar, an English cruising couple told me about Luperon, on the north coast of the Dominican Republic.
\nSailing there sounded better than recrossing the Gulf Stream to get to Rio Dulce, so the next winter, after a memorable passage through the Bahamas, we sailed for Luperon. It took us three days to cover the 185 miles, banging south and east into the tradewinds, pounding through the waves on long, unproductive tacks \u2013 taking care to steer clear of Haiti. When finally in sight of the Dominican coast, the wind suddenly died.
\nNorth of the Dominican Republic is the open Atlantic, dominated by a relentless eastern tradewind. When that wind fades, the seas do not calm immediately, so we were stuck, sails limp, while the boat lurched through the ghost swells. We could see the lights of Monte Cristi off our bow, but we\u2019d run down the boat\u2019s battery and were afraid to use the electric motor to make the last push to Luperon. Eventually, on the third night, we put the dinghy in the water, strapped it to the starboard side, and propelled ourselves the last 10 miles using the Tohatsu outboard.
\nWe were exhausted when we nosed into the narrow channel of Luperon Bay, and collapsed in our bunks as soon as we dropped the anchor. In the morning, we came out into the cockpit to see the verdant green hills, which Christopher Columbus praised in his log when he first sailed along this coast.
\n\u201cThis is the most beautiful mountain range that I have seen, looking exactly like the mountains of Cordoba,\u201d he wrote on 5 January 1493. It is still as beautiful as it was then \u2013 lush and fragrant. After months among the semi-arid islands of the Bahamas, it was a pleasure to smell the hot land breeze.
\nIt was also a pleasure to see the smiling face of Pappo, who came cruising up in his yola \u2013 an open glassfibre boat \u2013 to welcome us to town and offer us a mooring for just US$60 a month, the same price we sometimes paid for a single night in the Bahamas.
\nBruce Van Sant\u2019s The Gentleman\u2019s Guide to Passages South is the cruising bible for this part of the Caribbean
\nThe thornless path
\nTo get to Luperon I relied, as does everyone, on the indispensable The Gentleman\u2019s Guide to Passages South: The Thornless Path to Windward by Bruce Van Sant, which explains the painless way to handle the so-called \u2018thorny path\u2019 from Florida to the southern Caribbean.
\nVan Sant, now 87, lives in a lovely bungalow in Puerto Plata, with his wife, Rosa. He calmly reports that he is dying, but remains cheerful and happy to talk about his life\u2019s work \u2013 the guidebook he compiled after many years of sailing, carefully recording his routes.
\nVan Sant grew up daysailing in Florida and was a systems engineer for IBM. When he went cruising around the world in a 51ft Yankee Clipper ketch, he brought a scientific exactitude to his observations, filling his computer with meticulous records, so he could compare journeys over the same grounds taken years apart.
\nDuring tens of thousands of miles at sea, Van Sant developed a deep understanding of the seas and winds here \u2013 and how they move around islands \u2013 and the safest and most comfortable way to make passages.
\nHe started giving seminars in Georgetown, Bahamas, where cruisers \u2013 often inexperienced retirees \u2013 stop on their way from Florida. \u201cThey\u2019re laying around forever in these harbours, and they run into things in navigation and boat stuff that they really can\u2019t deal with,\u201d he says. \u201cThey could when they were back in Lake Erie, but now they\u2019re out in God\u2019s great world, and it\u2019s a little different.\u201d
\nWhen Van Sant discovered that cruisers in Puerto Plata were selling copied versions of his lecture notes, he decided he should do so himself. So in 1989, he published a spiral-bound 238-page book, which sold out in three months. In 2012, he published the 10th and final edition. Cruisers throughout the Caribbean still rely on his advice on how to make long passages when the wind is going to be blowing into your face the whole way.
\nThe key lesson of his book is to avoid doing what we did as we crossed from the Bahamas \u2013 banging upwind \u2013 and instead make east by sailing on the north coasts of islands at night, when the katabatic wind comes down from the land, lifting the easterly tradewind.
\nIt\u2019s good advice. There\u2019s a reason why he has sold 50,000 books.
\nTucked away
\nLuperon is the best hurricane hole in the Caribbean for two reasons: its geography and its people.
\nThe geography is unbeatable. Situated between the cruising grounds of the Bahamas and the Windward Islands, it is about 50 miles south of Turks and Caicos, 40 miles east of the Haitian border.
\nThe mouth of the harbour is small, only 350m wide, and it opens up into two mile-deep mangrove-lined bays, like an upside-down \u2018V\u2019. The relentless waves kicked up by the tradewinds run into shallow water near the harbour mouth where manatees and sea turtles often bask. On nights when the sea is especially lively, you can hear the waves breaking from the still water in the anchorage in the western bay.
\nLuperon was later renamed after Gregorio Luper\u00f3n, one of the founding fathers of the Dominican Republic.
\nAlison Lofthouse is a Yorkshire sailor who settled here with her husband, Miles, and the couple make their living looking after boats for absent cruisers. \u201c[Waves] don\u2019t come around the corner. They go straight. And that\u2019s all to do with the mangroves and how it\u2019s all built,\u201d she explains.
\nThe mud is very deep in places, excellent for anchoring, but the main geographic advantage are the mountains that run east to west across the island. \u201cSierra Central has the highest mountain in the country, the highest mountain between the Northern Rockies and the Andes,\u201d explains Van Sant.
\nThe vast horizontal piles of rock south of Luperon mean hurricanes do not strike the harbour directly. There has not been a direct hit in recorded history. Clifford Lyon, an American who sailed into the port in 2014, watched Hurricanes Irma and Maria both pass to the north in 2017.
\nHeading to market, local style
\nLuperon life
\nBut Luperon is also a splendid place to drop anchor and go ashore. When Van Sant first arrived in 1980, there was one other yacht in the bay. The streets were unpaved and most of the people were farmers and fishermen living in wooden huts with thatched roofs. Now there are more than 200 boats here most of the time, the streets are paved and most buildings are made of concrete.
\nSailors, mostly a mix of Europeans, Canadians and Americans, are constantly coming and going, many on their way to or from the Bahamas and the Windward Islands. Some leave their boats for hurricane season. Some stay to take a break and regroup before continuing on. Others are retirees who live here all year, enjoying the relaxed living and low priced \u2018gringo\u2019 bars.
\nThe yachts have brought money, as tourism has buoyed incomes throughout the country.
\nBut prices for budget-conscious cruisers are still good. Moorings are inexpensive by Bahamian standards \u2013 about $90 a month \u2013 and excellent fresh fruit and vegetables are available from stalls in town. You can get a lunch of stewed chicken, rice, beans and salad for US$3-4.
\nLush countryside inland from the coast.
\nSailors make their way ashore from their boats \u2013 mostly older monohulls \u2013 in dinghies daily, tying up at a floating dock attached to the moulle, a 300m concrete pier for offshore fishing boats. There\u2019s also a nice marina (Puerto Blanco Marina & Hotel) and a haulout yard. At the end of the moulle is a ramshackle town with a population of about 3,000, and despite the broken sidewalks and garbage in the streets it is friendly and, importantly, safe.
\nFor boats and people
\n\u201cThe most perfect thing about Luperon is that the people are kind, and they\u2019ll always help,\u201d says Lofthouse. \u201cDoesn\u2019t matter what it is. If you run out of petrol, or your car breaks down, you\u2019re going to get rescued. You don\u2019t have to worry about a thing and you\u2019re not going to get ripped off.\u201d
\n\u201cWe still have a rural mentality, a traditional mentality, a mentality of service,\u201d says Pablo Rodriguez, a local tourism expert. \u201cWhen a foreigner comes along, we welcome them, we give them food, we give them drink, and if necessary, we offer them a bed to sleep in. We take care of them, we protect them because we understand that hospitality is always part of our tradition, part of our culture.\u201d
\nWelcoming bar and restaurant just off the pier at Luperon
\nIn the lush hills outside of town, you can see farmers clearing their fields with machetes, riding to town on horseback, and bringing their produce to market in three-wheeled cargo trucks. Nobody swims in the murky water of the harbour, but beautiful Playa Grande is a 15-minute walk from the marina, and there is snorkelling at the harbour mouth.
\nBut it\u2019s not for everyone. Some cruisers accustomed to the posher Bahamian ports leave in a hurry, put off by the town with its incessant noise of unmuffled three-wheeled moto taxis and over-amplified bachata music. The spotted rays and pelicans share the bay with floating plastic. Rats dine openly on sailors\u2019 refuse in the open dumpster on the moulle.
\nBut the sailors who like it here hope it will stay as it is. \u201cEnjoy your stay, but don\u2019t waste your time grousing about the conditions of harbours to whose commerce you add little,\u201d Van Sant wrote in Passages South. \u201cUndeveloped ports are a growing rarity for the cruiser. Enjoy the Dominican Republic\u2019s while they last.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Luperon, in the Dominican Republic, is indisputably one of the Caribbean\u2019s best hurricane holes. Stephen Maher reports on its unique appeal \u2013 and meets legendary cruising writer Bruce Van SantOver a gassy Cuban draught beer at the quayside bar at … <\/p>\n