Dodging the Bats in a Cave deep in the Jungle

A storm passed over my anchored sailboat. There was intense winds of about 25 knots, black skies, and I was on guard for thunder and lightening. I am hoping that the storm will pass before the sun goes down so I can see the magnificent sunset. I am anchored off the Los Haitises National Park in the Bay of Samana, Dominican Republic. There are perhaps five or six other sailboats at anchor in the bay. The scenery is spectacular.

In the Dominican Republic, you need permission from the National Guard to move your sailboat, even if you are not leaving the country. At 8:00 AM this morning, I was lined up to get this permission. When I asked why this was necessary…. “it was necessary to prevent human smuggling.” He said.

“Human smuggling! But I’m by going there by myself,” I tried to explain to the National Guard. He wanted to know exactly where I was going, and how long I would be there. I said I would be back in the Marina in about 3 days. He asked for my papers and walked down to my boat and took a picture of it. I was given a new set of papers with the dates when I would be expected back to the Marina. He seemed pretty serious so I did not want to get into discussion as to what might happen if I was a day or two late in returning.

“I’ll make sure I’m back by Tuesday,” I said…….. Sailors are not good at making plans so far in advance…..

After arriving at Haitises from Puerto Bahia Marina this morning I launched my dinghy. I came here solo because Ileana is still in Toronto nursing her broken foot. She is expected to come to the Dominican Republic in about 10 days from now. When I left the Puerto Bahia Marina, there was no wind and I motored the entire way across the Bay which was about 15 miles. I successfully dropped the anchor and then went exploring in my dinghy with a Canadian couple that I met in the National Guard office that morning. Fraser and Debby from Sidney, BC. were keen on going on a dinghy adventure

There were three guys who claimed that they were Rangers sitting on the veranda. Not really knowing what to expect, in the park, we asked if we had to pay anything. We were offered a guided tour of “The Cave” and allowed entrance to the park……… all for 2000 pesos. 2000 pesos is approximately $60 CAN! I had a discussion with Debby and Fraser about this being highway robbery. I was told before I left the Marina that the fee would be about 100 pesos to enter the park. These guys were not even dressed as Rangers. There was no uniform as one might expect to see Rangers wear. They were wearing blue jeans, dirty t-shirts and sandals. However, not wanting to get charged with human smuggling or some other crime, I forked over the money. Nonetheless, Frazer and I walked to our dinghies and made sure that they were locked together, to make them harder to steal not totally convinced that these 3 guys were not just common thieves….

The cave was spectacular. We would have missed the petroglyphs, the faces carved in stone had we not had the guide with us. He explained that the carved faces were about 200 years old and no one really knew how they got there. There were spectacular views of the light coming through The Cave. It was quite beautiful. There was a sign clearly marked “DO NOT ENTER”. The guide took us under the rocky roof which led to a huge chamber. At the top of the chamber was a lot of commotion and noise. I shined the light and there were hundreds of bats hiding there! Fortunately for us they seemed friendly and left us alone…… At the end of this expensive tour, we all agreed that guide was a good idea after all. The best part was that our dinghies were still on the beach where we left them when we returned!

The next part of the adventure was to locate the Eco Lodge. It was explained to us in broken english that this was about 2 miles away and up a winding mangrove lined river. We were also told that you must take the first fork on the right if you wanted to get there. We reved up the dinghies and headed up the river into the jungle. It was a beautiful ride.

We found what was likely the Eco lodge about 2 miles up the narrow river but were not sure that there was anywhere we could have lunch. We thought we would do a Google search when we got back to the boats. Maybe we will try and come tomorrow if this was the right place….. We had decided to head back to the sailboats when we ran into another couple on a dinghy. Kendra and Carson said they had just visited some amazing caves. The caves were named The Owl Cave and The Lion Cave. They gave us some great directions and we headed for these amazing caves. The dinghy adventure seekers were up the cave challenge.

Fraser had his Navionics map downloaded on his cell phone. I could see him consulting his phone as we headed off in a direction where we thought the caves were located. The first cave brought us through a narrow inlet lined with huge cliffs on either side. At the end of the inlet was a dock and we tied up our boats. Fraser used the Navionic map to guide us through the jungle path until we got to the spectacular Owl Cave.

The Owl Cave……OK, we didn’t see any owls but it was spectacular

The next stop was the lion cave. We were told that this was the most spectacular cave of all. The caves contain Pictographs, which is art painted on the rock surfaces. There were numerous pictographs. We were not allowed to take photos of the pictographs so I took a picture of the picture…….No one really understands how they got there. They may be 200 years old.

Debby and Fraser came back to my boat, s/v Ileana. We had been exploring for the past six hours in the relentless Dominican Replublican sun and needed some cold ones to rehydrate. Debby and Fraser have been sailing for about five years in the Caribbean. As is typical when sailors get together after such adventures, the sailing stories start to flow, and they had some amazing sailing stories to tell. When it started getting dark, they left to go back to their boat for dinner. We are looking forward to another great adventure tomorrow.