Continuing on our sail along the Thorny Path to the Caribbean Islands we went from Samana in the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico. The Mona Passage is considered by many to be the worst passage on the Thorny Path. There are shoals where deep, strong currents get forced up on to shallower waters. Thunder storms are knows to “charge like bulls” down the peaks of Puerto Rico and wash onto vessels with little notice (we will unfortunately learn more on this in the coming days). Most of the passage is in the lee of Puerto Rico, which could give you a break from the trades on your nose but could also give you shifty wind patterns that are hard to predict. This passage was plotted to be approximately 150 nautical miles and to take around 30 hours.
As we previously wrote, the first thing you must do to prepare to leave Dom Rep is get your Despachio. At Samana there is a port official station right at the marina but he typically doesn’t get until 9-10 AM. We spoke with him the day before we wanted to leave, as he had asked us to do when we checked in. We told him that our little armada was looking to leave as early as we could the next morning. He said he would handle our paperwork and come in a little early to get us on our way. We paid our marina bill and prepared the boat for departure. Sure enough he showed up early, around 7 am, and was over to our boat around 7:30 with the paperwork and his small security force. He boarded Smitty and just wanted to take a quick look below before he actually stood there and watched us leave the dock. He was efficient and our whole group was off the dock by 8:30 am.
We were the first out of the marina. We set a course out of Samana Harbor at a slow pace to let the rest of the group catch. Once we were all clear we headed towards the eastern coast of the Dominican Republic. As has been typical with these passages, the winds and seas were higher than forecasted. It wasn’t too bad at this point but we did have 10-15 knots of wind on the bow and the sea state was choppy at about 3 feet. We headed south east and hugged the coast as we approached Hour Glass Shoal.
Hour Glass Shoal is a large shallow area for the area. The depths go from several thousand feet around the shoal and in the middle of the Mona Passage to less than 200 feet on the shoal. So while this is not a shoal where you risk grounding your boat you still need to treat it as such. The equatorial currents will run along the southern coast of Puerto Rico and then wrap up into the Mona Passage. When those currents and ocean swells heading north hit the shoal they stack up and the sea state can go from some benign like 10 foot ocean swell at a long period but steep, high waves that rob you of momentum and can damage your boat. There are two major routes around the Hour Glass Shoal. You can continue to hug the coast and travel more due south, keeping the shoal on your port (left) side until you are in the deep water again. Then you turn east and head towards Isla de Mona. In the lee of Isla de Mona you head northeast towards your chosen harbor for making landfall. This is the path taken by motor boats typically. The course is to go north of Hour Glass Shoals by 5-10 miles, traveling a due east or slightly northeast course until you are safely in deep water and then continuing southeast in the lee of Puerto Rico. This was the course we chose. We continued southeast until we approaches the Isla Desecheo and then headed a little more south to head towards Puerto Real.
After all of the planning and hand wringing over the weather window, the Mona ended up being good to us. We had 15-25 knots of wind just off the nose most of the passage and the sea state didn’t interfere with direction or speed. It was calm enough that we trolled a line all through the Mona, with no luck unfortunately. We covered 157 nautical miles in 28 hours and were tied up at a marina in Puerto Real by around noon.
We were able to clear in over the phone since we were American citizens and already had our US Custom decal for the boat (something we learned about and ordered in the Bahamas). The others had to rent cars and go to the US Customs and Immigration office. The office was nice enough to let them do the initial checkin by phone and then go the office the next day after getting a night’s rest. Soon we would be in Caribbean Sea and on our way to St. Thomas, our ultimate destination for this year. But first there would be some major drama that would shape the next month of cruising….
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