The last you heard from me, I was in the Dominican Republic. Pooperon, how can you forget! We were getting the repairs done on the boat to get ready for our trip onwards. We were trying to wait at least until December with the hopes of seeing the humpback whales migrating north between Dominican Republic (DR) and Puerto Rico. A little early in the season but there would be a chance we would have to hole up in Samana (the north east corner) for awhile to await for a weather window. On Thanksgiving Day we saw a perfect weather window to make it across the deadly Mona Passage. The Mona Passage could have been the roughest and most dangerous passage yet, but it was smooth sailing with 2 - 3 feet seas most of the way. Remember, we are still going dead into the trade winds. We had two options: A) travel east until Samana, then south down the east coast of the DR, then around Mona Island, using the night lees (breeze caused by land cooling at night) and east into the southern end of Puerto Rico or B) shoot straight across 48 hours landing about the middle of Puerto Rico. Because we had unusually calm weather we choose B and it was easy.
Thanksgiving turkey cruiser's style!
Crowbars are actually very handy tools for cruisers!
More handier than the Dominican wheelbarrow!
We made it in 44 hours and by sundown, we were checked in and anchored into a beautifully clear bay! Yeah, no more poopy water and look a beach!
This picture is hard to see, but this was taken the night we left. They have a saying that goes Red Skies at night...Sailor's Delight, and this was an awesome sign that we would have a delightful sail!
Heading East along the North coast of the Dominican Republic.
Larry and I were speechless when we finally arrived to Puerto Rico (PR), we had forgotten how beautiful the water and beaches could be. We relaxed for three days with the other cruisers who made the crossing at the same time as we did. Imagine, Moon, and Shameless. And celebrated Carol's (on S/V Shameless) birthday!
No comments:
Post a Comment