March 17. We leave at first light heading to the windward passage that will take us between Cuba & Hispaniola. Haiti & Dominican Republic share the island of Hispaniola. Haiti is known for not being the safest of countries so we do not plan to make any stops there.

We are lucky...or unlucky, depending on how you see it. We see it as lucky. The weather we have for the next few weeks is light and variable as the weather people like to call it. It means we will have to motor some, probably more than we would like. But, to us, that is better than beating into strong wind and waves and getting the shit beat out of both us and HT. Been there, done that. We have done our share of long passages, crossing the Gulf of Mexico nine times, so we know what we are getting ourselves into. We resign ourselves to settle in & get into a routine of watch, sleep, eat, read, sleep, repeat.

The passage is for the most part uneventful, which to us boaters, is a good thing. Seeing Cuba, even from a great distance was cool. We could only make out the outline of the mountains, but none the less we SAW Cuba. Maybe in the near future we will be able to visit there.

Due to the way the coast line of Haiti runs, it was longer before we began to see it. Once we did, the first thing we noticed was the fires. Richard smelled the smoke early one morning while on watch, we continued to smell smoke for the next few days. The Haitians burn their land. Why? I'm not really sure, something to google when I have nothing better to do. It seemed like it took us forever to round the point to the southern coast. We eventually had to head into the wind and waves to make the corner. In general, sail boats don't have high horsepower engines and don't motor fast. Hello Texas definitely falls into that generality. And even with the light conditions we still make slow progress.

The Haitians sail! Boy, do they sail. They sail their little dug out canoes like we drive our cars. They seem to be all over the coastal waters. Fishing of course, but we saw them going to other islands that they have not yet been burned up collecting wood. Some of the islands off the mainland are clearly set up to be fish camps. They commute to these camps. The sandy beaches are crowded with their little dug outs. The dug outs are just that, with skinny tree trunks for mast and booms. A patch work of tarps for sails. We joked to each other they're probably FEMA tarps from the earthquake. Ah come on, we hadn't had much sleep...

There is one island considered to be a safe stop for cruisers named Ila a Vache off the mainland were we could've stopped. But opted to keep our momentum going & not waste the good weather.

Fish traps! The Haitians use fish traps, I guess similar to the crap pots we see in the Florida Keys. Differences are, in the keys they are generally in shallow waters, well marked, and most of the time out of the channels...I said most of the time. LOL. In Haitian waters, they are in deep water, no designated channels, and to mark a trap in 80ft of water with a super long polypropylene rope?, they attach a clear water/soda bottle or maybe two. So the first one we hit, we thought no, not in this depth. But we noticed we began to slow a little, hmm maybe current. After we hit the second one, we heard it and really slowed down. We need to take a look! Oh it's pitch black dark!!!! With a spot light we could clearly see that the prop was fouled. Nothing to do but jump in and cut it off. Well, nothing for me to do!! Richard jumped in!! I held the light!! On the upside, he said the water was warm. :) So, like many things, we learned the hard way and became more diligent about floating water bottles.

March 20. Once we crossed the border into Dominican Republic we pulled up to a beach near Cabo Rojo so we both could get a good night's sleep. We didn't get off the boat...well Richard did, to unfoul a fish trap from the prop. Can't see those buggers in the dark! :)

I'm still promising pictures when Internet speed is faster.