Day 11

I was trying to be adventurous on this trip so I challenged myself to taste something new each day.  I tried mashed banana, passionfruit, and chicken done in various ways, Caribbean style.  Walter tried some of the deep fried Dominican treats (really not described in any further detail on the cards beside the serving trays) and most of the meats they served.

This morning, I was trying their fresh made while-you-wait omelet, and a guy ahead in the line was speaking English to the cook.  As we stood in the line up, I began chatting with “Andrew”.  He was from Toronto area and we exchanged pleasantries until his omelet was ready.  Then the couple behind me chatted with me – they were from Winnipeg.  So we had a little Canadian corner at breakfast!

Stay tuned as these people figure in later…

We finished our lovely breakfast and prepared for a few hours at the beach again.  At 1:30 pm we had a sailing instruction lesson booked.  There was always a breeze coming from the east, or southeast so it was likely to be a great sailing day. 

Our instructor was a young looking Dominican, maybe twenty years old, dressed in the Mariana Rentals shorts and “Under Armor” brand of shirt. He had a toque on (knitted cap) and sunglasses.  English?  No!  Walter looked skeptically at me and we both wondered how this was going to go!  But the guy signaled, showed the necessary actions and got us going out on the wild blue sea!  As Walter adjusted the direction by a bar that controlled the two rudders, he could catch the breeze just right and gain some speed.  As he learned to turn into the wind to turn about, the sail inflated the other direction and away we sped back where we’d come.  At one point, as we sat on the pontoons and our Dominican friend stood holding the mast and giving his hand signals, the wind warm on our skin, we had that surreal feeling again.  What are we doing here in this glorious place on a sail boat?  Then as Walter was to switch directions, the mast and sail swung across and caught Walter’s forehead, knocking his “Markusson Country” cap into the Atlantic!  The instructor quickly made us turn around, got us close to the cap still floating on the surface and then he dove in himself to retrieve it!  He earned a ten dollar tip that afternoon!

Soon, the instructor wasn’t correcting or redirecting Walter’s movements.  He pointed to the shore and we knew our lesson was over.  We pulled up to the white beach and strode to the rental booth.  If we waited a few minutes, we might be able to take the sailboat out again.  The next rental hadn’t shown up yet.  We ended up out for almost an hour on our own, sailing back and forth within sight of the booth on shore.  Cruising out as far as Walter had gone snorkeling and across to the areas in front of the other resorts, we skimmed across the azure expanse, basking in the sun’s rays and feeling like we soared on angel’s wings.  Oh, the liberty that coursed through our prairie veins-to be out on the wide open ocean!

After showering off the salt water and sand from our browning skin, we rested in the air conditioned room before going to dinner.  It was Dominican Night again…the lively four-member band with cotton “island” shirts and straw hats played and sang as we entered the main restaurant.  Some featured Dominican dishes were available to sample. But we were mostly just hungry and tired, so we ate, acknowledged the ambiance and headed to the” Internet Café” avoiding the vendors of jewelry, t-shirts, cigars and other trinkets.  (I did sneak back out to check on the evening’s entertainment, which were very talented Dominican dancers in colourful costumes, doing dance steps so quick I almost missed some of them!) 

Checking in on Facebook and e-mail, we then wandered through the large open area and we saw the Winnipeg couples again.  We stopped to visit and got to asking more questions of them and lo and behold, we know all kinds of people in common!  Two of them were brother and sister and their spouses holidaying together.  Their parents are a pastor and wife from Hodgson, Manitoba, their uncle is our son’s boss in Steinbach, and on and on the connections went.  The wife knows Walter’s former roommate in Bible College and all of them had gone to Millar College of the Bible!  We had a lovely chat about camp, people we knew and then compared experiences at the resort.  Very neat to run into Christian young folks!