Going ashore in the Dominican Republic
3O Chris Kelly provides an update on British Trader's visit to the Dominican Republic...
After finishing watch (0800-1200), the 4th engineer, the deck and engine cadets and I went ashore.
After a 10 min taxi ride from Aes Andres LNG terminal to Boca Chica, the first stop was to change money into the local currency (Peso), but first we went to the beach for a very refreshing cold drink. After this we headed to a small money exchange.
We then went back to the beach to see if there was anything we could spend some time doing. After a 5 minute walk we came across some jet skis. I rented one for 30 minutes and Cambell and Don, the engineers, rented them for an hour. The price for half hour was 1,500 pesos, about £20.
So away we went into the crystal clear bay of Boca Chica. Thirty minutes soon passed and I had to head back to the shore. I handed back my life vest and went back to wait with Marcin, the deck cadet. He didn’t want to go on the jetski, which was handy because someone needed to look after our bags and take pictures.
We sat in the sun and just chilled out while we waited for the other two to finish their hour. When they were done we went for a walk down the main tourist street and bought some souvenirs, before heading back to the beach for a drink.
We found a bar called the Boat House, right on the beach front; we got a drink and sat in the sun.
There were some Americans who had retired in the Dominican Republic who were drinking at the same bar. We talked to them about what we do at sea and about our ship.
As the sun started to set we decided it was time to head back to the ship, back to work.