Boca Chica - The Local Vacation Hot Spot!

Boca Chica is about a 20min drive from DR capital of Santo Domingo. Here many locals came enjoy a mini vacation on the white sand beaches and bustling local waterfront. We stayed in Marina Zar Par as you were not allowed to anchor. The marina was open to the sea with a breaking wall that had a large shallow sand bar. Charters boats full of people would come each day to moor along the sandbar and party until the wee hours of the morning. Many boats had seadoos that would race past our boat with kids driving as young as 7 years old! We decided to join the fun and went out for daily swims in the clear waters along the sandbar. Generally, this was the best part of our days as the sun was hot!

Much of the town lines the beach and along the waterfront is many restaurants and bars. There are hundreds of people of all ages wondering around selling everything from handmade jewellery to viagra. At one of the places we stopped for lunch we agrees to an hour massage each for $20 from a lady offering her services. Once again, the setup was interesting which was basically a beach lounge chair laid out in the middle of the restaurant! You could instantly tell this lady had some experience but the downfall was her hands were so strong that at times you were gritting your teeth as she worked out some knots in her back. 

In general, people on Caribbean islands are scared of big dogs as most of the canines are strays on the streets and not found in peoples homes. Bella had a special knack to warm the hearts of the locals with her kind personality and toolbox of tricks. By the end of each visit in a place people knew Bella by name and seem to no longer have a fear of bigger dogs!

We decided to take a break from Boca Chica and head into the capital of Santo Domingo to explore.. see the next blog for details on our trip!

We were waiting on our new sail track to arrive and had a hard time tracking in down with UPS and DR customs. As it was already a week late, Steve took matters into his own hands and headed to the airport where he navigated through several steps in order to pick up the part that was practically sitting on the tarmac! Once the new track was installed we were ready to sail off to the further island East in the DR (Isla Sonoma) to wait our a weather window to head towards South America!