Up next in 10
Sailing Through the Bahamas & Turks to the Dominican Republic | Ep 75 #svaguaazul #sailboat #boat
0 views
Jun 28, 2025
Join us aboard SV Agua Azul as we sail from Mayaguana Anchorage in the Bahamas, through Turks and Caicos, the Dominican Republic! Experience rocky anchorages, rough seas, dolphin sightings, and tropical island vibes. Chapters 0:00 Starting at Mayaguana Anchorage 2:30 Navigating rocky, shallow waters 5:15 Exploring a quiet Bahamian fishing town 8:45 Rough sailing and storm encounter 12:00 Dolphin sightings during passage 14:30 Entering Turks and Caicos 17:00 Arrival and rough night in Turks and Caicos 20:00 Setting sail for the Dominican Republic 23:45 Approaching lush landscapes of Dominican Republic 26:30 Anchoring and exploring Lupron, Dominican Republic 30:00 Reflections and lessons learned Don’t forget to subscribe for more sailing adventures, tips, and island explorations! Blog Post: https://www.chrisdoeswhat.com/sailing-bahamas-to-dominican-republic/ Get content early by becoming our YouTube member https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UUMOZBmn0CZW578hpt4ImB3CRA
View Video Transcript
0:01
okay so we're still in my iguana um anchorage and uh we're a little further
0:08
down and it's become a little rocky here you know we I I got you know my fuel in
0:14
got my sail bag fixed but we're going to move a little up in this so clear that
0:21
and uh get uh hopefully a little smoother cuz uh the further we go that
0:27
way the better our angle is going to Turks and Caos and uh we look at still
0:34
leaving next week so is cuz the the wind angle and everything is going to be
0:40
better and plus the wind speed will be calmer the seas should be calmer and get
0:45
some of that hopefully champagne cruising that we've never had but uh right now I'm just going to pull up the
0:51
anchor and uh drop us down it is uh kind of a little balmy and a little shallow
0:56
in here so we have to be careful and we're moving on uh almost high tide
1:02
tide's still going up so if we do get uh a little hung on sand we can uh you know
1:10
just go on through or or turn around so we got to anchor up we're off we're
1:16
going to Myaguana we're going to be closer to the town closer to land uh where the swell is coming from and
1:22
hopefully that alleviates some of this uh uh side rock we're getting which kind
1:27
of sucks there's uh my babe and the puppy they're so excited to be on the road
1:34
again get off the boat
1:40
well maybe yes we venture onto our 3-day
1:48
lot of lot i don't know what I'm I don't know what I'm saying a lot of passages
1:54
so we're going to be doing a lot of miles 210 n miles here soon so that's going to be
2:01
a a lot of days trying to get uh up so we can get the wind angle pick a good weather window get out of here be smooth
2:09
riding true and uh hopefully you know not too big a swells the the day I'm
2:15
looking at it's got probably about 3T swells with uh at 6 7 period so that
2:23
should be fairly comfortable and uh the wave speed I mean the wind speed is not going to be too awfully bad but
2:30
hopefully we have a little wind to sail with now I'm going to get this boat cleaned in the right direction and uh
2:37
get on out of here okay I don't think the camera picks it up but over there
2:44
about I'd say about 100T in front of us over there is uh 3T and then over there
2:50
is 4T and we're going to thread the needle through here and my babe is uh up
2:56
there making sure we're not grounding on ship [Laughter]
3:05
so babe says these uh flat rocks don't look very flat
3:12
look like they rise up yeah so yeah this is kind of shady going
3:19
through here but uh our uh the clouds
3:25
making shadows is really making it really difficult of course that's why
3:32
we're only doing we're only doing like three and a half knots right now
3:37
which is still pretty damn fast probably going too fast
3:44
ah yeah but them are low ones
3:51
so would you say there seems to be a lot of rocks going through here not as bad as I thought
3:58
yeah they're pretty big you don't want to know
4:04
i don't know how deep they are yep i don't want to find out
4:13
yeah it's uh that's why you have to go through here in uh daylight sun stray
4:19
above hopefully no clouds which we have clouds
4:26
okay we're here at this dock our ding is right there our boat's right over there and uh babe's leaving me she's all the
4:34
way up there she's like "You take too long to tie up the dinghy."
4:40
Okay off the boat on the hopefully find a few fresh
4:46
vegetables and uh stinks around here and beer yeah it does mangroves it is
4:53
there's a lot of mangroves here and uh yeah my uh my iguana island is more of a
5:01
this side's more of a fishing right here so
5:07
there's a big uh fish market I guess when they bring the boats in and they
5:13
start uh you know dulling out the fish
5:18
we tried our first grocery store back there ours 9 to 5 it's locked up
5:25
and uh my wife says this is like them movies like a zombie apocalypse
5:32
nothing out here oh look there's a person there is a person i hope so
5:40
yeah but we've been walking for quite a while what's in your car you get it out
5:48
and uh Yeah nothing out here did you get it okay so we've gone to the bar and a
5:56
grocery store and No we didn't we didn't go to the bar yeah well he looked in there and uh cash only there's uh we're
6:05
they're waiting on the mail truck so there's really no food here and uh yeah um guess we're going back to
6:14
the boat i have food and liquor and we get uh I
6:20
guess we'll have to get food when we get to DR well we have food i just wanted to
6:25
get some veggies if I could but yeah the only thing they have really is cabbage
6:31
and soggy tomatoes yeah that's why they're not really wanting to buy that
6:38
but uh yeah got to get back to the boat hopefully our ding is still there and we
6:43
can uh Oh I hope so right out of here the people in Bahamas so nice yeah we
6:52
were uh walking past we we don't really have any cash on us and the guy offered
6:58
to give us something if we needed something desperately and I'm like no we're good but that's just like that's
7:05
amazing so yeah if you if you're in down over
7:10
here check out this little town but be sure to bring cash they have they have a
7:16
bar with dance floor you know it'd be a a nice little community to just
7:23
relax it's very very laidback oh yeah the only bad thing about it is
7:30
it's a really long walk so you you drink a lot
7:35
that'll be a walk but yeah we're getting back to the boat and the dog is all up
7:41
and driving us crazy driving us crazy
7:47
so this is where our dingy is and uh nice little dock here it's
7:53
shallow shallow shallow so but uh we got some kind of authority people
8:01
authority people i can see this cutout makes it pretty easy to get on your dingy
8:09
and uh but I'm sure this is underwater
8:14
pretty good coming in here is shallow
8:22
so that's a marker you want to stay close to and basically ride this in
8:33
but this is shallow and Bella get your pow off me
8:41
okay so right in the evening our boat decided to spring leak on the wire maker
8:47
the last cylinder so I had to take it apart rettighten it down and now it's not leaking but this is what the mess
8:53
looks like right now so I had to pull this out and uh test it up here and now
8:59
I'm going to drop it back in and uh that is a pain in the butt to get back in now
9:08
well we briefly had dolphins
9:14
bella I guess we're going too slow no they're
9:19
in the they're in our bow oh they are i don't feel like getting up there in
9:25
this it's a little rough
9:33
but we got dolphins
9:52
hell yeah wow this is our first dolphins we caught on
10:01
our valve yeah I saw them that's awesome
10:12
but we're leaving uh Mayana heading towards uh Turks and Caos
10:20
and we actually got dolphins are about that's the first time in forever
10:27
i think it's the uh the first time we pulled into anchorage we got dolphins a little bit but not like this
10:58
but yeah I think we're going too slow they're getting bored with us real quick
11:04
oh they are
11:30
Oh yeah I saw him
11:36
okay guys we are now entering Turpps and Cos about to go through the pony cut
11:43
and the pony uh channel and uh yeah this was a
11:49
kind of rough sale yeah only got calmer the last hour
11:58
about eight hours of roughness and we are also bashing as usual so I'd like to
12:05
someday not do a bashing sail cuz uh I think that if the wind's not coming
12:10
on your uh your bow it'd probably be more comfortable i think I' I've never
12:16
experienced that but I want to try it
12:22
not enough words I guess so hopefully going to the DR
12:27
um that will be a more comfortable passage where it should be
12:36
[Music] well this is Turks co you can see the clear change in uh color of water so
12:45
and uh where we're going to the banks pretty darn shallow okay guys we're in Turkey coast and
12:52
there's a water spout right over there it's
12:58
let me get Let me look at the camera not the water spout but yeah
13:04
it's uh it looks like it's going to dissipate here soon but that's a that's a little one yeah
13:12
it's dissipated yeah I'm hoping we can get ahead of this
13:18
storm though okay that cargo ship
13:23
woo that felt close even though it's not and it's I think we're going to outrun the star and then we have a tugging
13:31
barge over there and he's only moved at 1.8 knots
13:37
so it's getting wild we got a little heel going on here cuz uh trying to get moving now
13:43
this uh storm that's coming or coming across hopefully we can mess it uh you
13:49
just saw that little funnel from it but uh yeah
13:55
JS and Cos is interesting a lot of traffic out here
14:01
okay so we got into Turks and Cos last night and that storm I didn't beat it so that
14:10
kicked my tail i actually got caught and I was dropping the uh the main cell in
14:16
the storm the beginning of the storm and then right after I dropped it winds picked up to like micro burst speed and
14:25
uh you see the shape of our biminy well I was down here steering our our boat
14:30
into the wind and uh getting soaked but uh yeah and there was a kind of a rough
14:38
night to sleep cuz the seas seastate kept picked up but you saw that uh that
14:44
little uh water spout I saw right before that storm has so tried to outrun it
14:51
didn't but uh outran that cargo ship that's a good thing so it didn't hiss
14:57
that would have probably hurt a little bit worse but uh no we're out we're heading to three three Mary's right now
15:04
and uh this is our last stop in the DR of course we're not stopping here we're just uh going through and uh all
15:12
everybody's asleep right now except for me the the dog's asleep my babe she's uh
15:19
and on the couch she can't she can't sleep while I'm driving she says uh you know I need uh some some supervision but
15:26
uh she's in there cuz uh I was in a good sleep i can sleep through anything so that's uh where I'm
15:34
at so that's why I'm driving i'm sure that's a good fishing spot
15:40
right there right now
15:47
okay we're about to exit Turks and Caos and uh yeah we're getting close there's
15:54
a cargo ship coming in right there behind us but yeah you have to watch it through here because uh there is a
16:01
bombies out here and you know we didn't exactly take the shipping path so it's
16:08
the shorter path but you don't want any bombies
16:14
like that but uh yeah what do you have babe
16:19
i didn't know it was the shorter
16:25
I really don't even know where we're going honestly well we're we're going to exit the uh
16:31
Turks and Cos and going to go to a little small island of Turks and Cos
16:38
called uh Three Mary's and from there we're going to stage and that's where we're going to jump off to the DR but
16:45
right now we're passing like Six Heels K it's over there just some heels you can
16:51
see them in the background and and things like that it's uh Yeah it's
16:58
you know the water here is very blue and uh it's like when you're out here
17:04
you feel like you're in a uh desert of nothingness let me uh bump that over
17:13
cuz that looks like a a bombie what
17:26
see I'll turn see it so that's what we've been avoiding is
17:32
things like that
17:38
my wife says they look pretty flat the water is getting pretty deep here but uh
17:44
Yeah they're flat some of them yeah I just just don't want
17:50
to hit one of them but yeah we'll uh we'll uh hopefully uh
17:56
be in three Mary's by in six hours so
18:07
This is exhausting yeah the wind and tide hasn't been working with us so yeah but this has
18:14
been a lot smoother than uh yesterday yeah but we're about to get out on this
18:20
we are i'll show you what it looks like out there so we'll be right back
18:26
and that right there is Six Hills six Hill Caves and that's about the last
18:33
thing you'll see if you're uh leaving Bahamas on the uh east southeast side
18:41
i'm sorry i mean if you're leaving the uh Turks and Cos on the southsoutheast
18:46
side okay guys my babe just dropped the anchor down and we are in three
18:58
yeah that's but uh there's my my baby it's been a
19:03
long day we've been out here for 13 hours that's two days of 134 no sleep last
19:12
night but I think we're going to get some sleep tonight tomorrow is going to be Last night was horrible tomorrow's
19:17
going to be the long day though so literally had to drop anchor in the middle of a freaking storm out in the
19:25
middle of an ocean yeah we did there's warrior that did this all night long
19:31
but uh this place is uh this place is nice and uh come in here looks like it
19:38
this is uh missed sunset here's here's our sunset
19:44
right there but I don't have my sun setter we got another boat right there
19:50
and here we are right here so we're going to have drinks and call in early
19:55
cuz I have to get up at 3 to start for the DR
20:00
last leg last leg and we're going to um spend quite a bit of time in the DR
20:06
relaxing and having some fun yes we are cuz the Bahamas was fun but there's a
20:11
lot of movement whoa dr is just one big island yes it is bahamas is if you want
20:17
to get some to another island you got to go about 8 nine hours just to get there
20:23
oh my god i got I got to get my my legs are not working right now okay i love you
20:29
so we have left uh three Mary's for the DR and uh I'll come back when there's
20:35
more light cuz this is what I got for light
20:40
okay guys so we're about 30 nautical miles in to this trip to the DR from
20:47
Turks and Caos uh got about 50 miles to go
20:54
and uh yeah uh this morning I trimmed the sails up pretty good in the dark it
21:01
uh was fairly balanced and right now the wind's kind of
21:07
low it's 12 knots but it's picking up again we're seeing uh speeds anywhere
21:13
from 4.5 to 7 knots and our average is 5.3 knots right now
21:23
thinking of this babe can't wait for it to be over
21:29
start another new adventure somewhere
21:36
yeah tail but yeah we have uh the full head and
21:42
full main sail out and uh yeah our tail tails on the head sail uh looking good
21:50
and right now we are running six 6 and 12 knots so that's what we want to see
21:58
we'll be in the DR around 5ish so we left at 3:00 in the morning so 3 in the
22:06
morning to 1700 hours it's a long day
22:12
okay guys this is about the first weather window where my wife can actually use the kitchen
22:20
sort of i'm kind of being slammed up against over here but uh yeah what are you making babe
22:29
hammond cheese crackers oh that looks good
22:34
and so who says passage food can't taste good
22:41
trying yeah we're going to cook it up in our little be oven over there
22:46
i got to bolt that down it fell off the the wood already it Yeah it did
22:56
okay that's what's cooking right there [Music]
23:02
hot hot stove all over the damn place yep
23:09
everything's tilted we're My wife's cooking at We were doing uh seven knots six seven knots right now
23:17
oh really we're going to be in leaning like this i want to be in the DR soon
23:26
but now I'm back upstairs let this cool down okay guys look at that
23:34
that is delish and that wants some of it
23:40
my babe got all the lines behind you our boat's a mess it is a mess it is a
23:48
mess cleaning wise speaking of spanning wise rustwise
23:54
Bahamas took a toll on it i mean the rust
23:59
i had it all clean in Fort Lauderdale well we've done a thousand miles babe i know and it's taking its toll and we're
24:07
going to have to do some maintenance yep in the Dominican Republic
24:15
babe we can see mountains of Dominican Republic over there
24:28
why is it so cloudy because the mountains hold the clouds
24:35
remind you of home a little bit no we're going to see sun again oh yeah
24:44
maybe we'll see some snow up on the top oh no no talk about snow
24:52
i didn't go to Alaska
24:57
hey guys we're pulling in the DR here and you'll see this uh mountain right
25:02
here in the clouds yeah they kind of messed up the landscape with all these wind generators but uh windmills but
25:11
they uh that is just totally awesome and uh my babe we're still trucking in
25:20
he's over there it's relaxing
25:27
you see it right there babe kind of reminds me a little of Mount
25:33
Reineer i see that in Fort Lewis uh
25:39
and just a white cap volcano
25:45
what straight ahead yeah it's straight ahead
25:52
uh I I see a big wind farm i see a lot of mountains
25:57
and uh see a lot of potential for rain
26:05
today no
26:10
but yeah we're almost in Oh that may be a boat over there i have to get my binoculars or something to see it
26:21
see if I can zoom there it is so we're pulling in and my wife says
26:28
this looks like a uh like we're pulling into Ireland or something
26:33
but warmer warmer definitely warmer very green but yeah this is opposite from
26:40
Bahamas bahamas is beautiful but this is just like a whole different experience
26:47
yes it is and uh we're just on the outside right now well we're going we're
26:52
going to show you Loop Rod cuz uh they say that uh Loop Rod people there's
26:58
mixed reviews some people love it some people hate it some people say the water is filthy some people say it's not that
27:03
bad it's like the ICW in Florida you know there's just a whole bunch of mixed
27:09
reviews we lived on the ICW in Florida for 7 months and yeah it it could be nasty
27:17
yeah but uh yeah we're going to we're going to show you that and uh they say it's dangerous i I don't know i you know
27:24
every every place has its dangerous uh areas and you just avoid them areas but
27:30
we're going to here uh here in the man pull down the sails you can see the backdrop is becoming
27:37
so yeah it's uh it's here we made it tomorrow we
27:43
got to check in oh we got to put up our coupon yes we do have to take Bahamas
27:48
down yeah we'll do that uh we'll just do that on anchor it's not
27:54
not a big rush leaning yeah yeah because we're doing uh
28:00
we do have the engines right now but we're doing about uh six and a half to
28:06
we did eight over eight knots and we sailed personally yeah we did and we
28:12
made it here in 14 hours but uh I'm ready for my uh sundowner sun
28:18
downer i'm ready for a nap it's been 14 hours 3 in the morning can't have a nap
28:25
yet yeah guys can't enjoy a sundowner sun down yeah got to do that so yeah
28:31
y'all y'all follow along we'll show you what what's in here
28:37
trees out here our dog trees this is a uh a uh shoot obstacle course getting
28:45
through here you like weave around the the the buoys they got ones way over there then way over there and reefs and
28:54
dips but right now we're showing 12 foot of depth
28:59
but uh let me a little one right there i don't know if you can see it but yeah
29:04
just a little can buoy and uh then we'll turn in feels quite
29:10
warm in here though turn in there yeah we're turning in there what's up there
29:16
that is abandoned uh um resort
29:22
maybe there will be bugs we just so we're anchored here in Lupron
29:28
this is a Dominican Republic DR and uh have my
29:35
we bought these in um Bahamas uh and Bahamas and we are saving them just for
29:42
when we uh uh reached the end well he would have ate them sooner but I made
29:48
him wait but uh yeah these are uh not the best uh dipping chips but they're
29:54
all we could find in the Bahamas at the at Lupron i mean at Long Island my lips
29:59
are so sore and uh yeah and this is our uh $7 bottle of salsa so we can dip our
30:08
chips we're in now DR so things will be cheaper no we hope we hope three months
30:14
of um of our grocery bill tripling yeah so yeah I'm I'm excited to kind of get
30:21
that we're going to share the the the the love the trials and the tribulations
30:28
of the so far the trip from going from just beaches beaches
30:35
beaches which I I love but after three months I was ready for a change and this
30:43
is definitely a change this is um this is night and day tropics is different the smell of flowers yeah that's all I
30:50
can say birds trees yeah it's just I feel like I'm in the
30:55
the mountains i feel like I'm in the jungle in on a lake you know like
31:00
actually where where I grew up at Washington State that's what it seems like right now except a little bit more
31:06
jungly cuz Washington was kind of chilly and I keep hearing something rolling and
31:11
I'm like and you can't really see i would explain the watercolor as about
31:17
like the ICW so if you ever been on the ICW that's it looks the same color and
31:23
uh it you know I was per per what people were saying I was expecting to see uh
31:29
trash floating around seeing how we're turning because there's lights everywhere yeah we got to check in and
31:35
get on a morning in here so that's got to be tomorrow because it's too late now
31:41
got our Q flag up so We're going to have sundowns
31:47
yeah we're going to have sundowns y'all guys
31:53
[Music]
32:08
number [Music]