Mona Passage

THE MONA PASSAGE ( from D.R to Puerto Rico)

The Mona passage is really a tough crossing for any caption and crew. My caption is a rookie! The crew is even worse! I’m getting worried. I still hate sailing through the night, we have watches two hours on two hours off. The passage from Luperon to Puerto Rico (in good weather) will take three nights and two full days to sail. We decided to make two stops along the way. Other boats sailed the whole way through.

We stopped in the middle of the night at Rio San Juan. Some of the boats that were anchored there didn’t have any anchor lights on. I steered and Carl was on the bow of the boat with a flashlight. We set anchor and went to sleep. In the morning we awoke to see that all of the other sailboats were gone except the Pas De Deux and us. Mystique was anchored about ten yards away from a tourist diving spot. Then two large cat sailboats pull up on both sides of us, playing loud music and carrying about fifty tourists each. All of which dive off to snorkel. Carl just waves and looks at all the girls, I wanted to move out of their way. We stayed put until they left!
The next afternoon we dropped the hook in Samana. It’s still D.R. and is very beautiful and clean. As soon as we dropped anchor a guy just like handy Andy pulls up along side our boat. We were only going to sleep a few hours and then head for the Mona passage that evening. He took Carl to Immigration and brought us diesel and water to the boat. It was kind of nice when your tired to have someone like him help you out. The Pas De Deux didn’t stop in Samana they went on ahead from Rio San Juan to Puerto Rico.

We left Samana right on schedule 4:30 pm. The weather remained good. It took us 29 hours through the Mona passage. We ended up motor sailing most of the way because the winds and the sea were real calm. After dropping hook in Puerto Rico my phone began to chime. I had three unheard messages. They were from Michiel on the Pas De Deux. Their transmission had went out on the passage. They were hoping to meet up with us alone the way. We must have passed them during the night. It was the passage from hell for them. Hot no wind sitting not going anywhere. My heart sunk. I called them back. They were fine but still about five hours away. They are from Holland so they have to go to another port for immigration then us from the USA. That night as the sun was setting us saw then sailing into Borinquen bay. They got as close as possible then used their dinghy to push the boat into the bay for a safe anchorage. We met them on the way in to show them where we were.