The Mona is Behind us
29 April 2015 | San Juan, Puerto Rico
We are feeling pretty good about cracking the last, and toughest, crossing of this year's adventure. The Mona Passage has a fearsome reputation and the Internet is littered with tales of 'valiant' battles with the wind, waves and current. Not us I'm afraid. It was a cruise.
Very careful planning, mainly in Weathertrack, and a modicum of good fortune allowed us an easy 200nm sail. The usual route to do battle with the trades is down the west coast of PR but this leaves you with a tough slog along the southern shore. We spotted an unusual southerly that allowed us to blast straight past the "inhospitable" north shore directly to San Juan. Added to the southerly there was an unusually strong easterly current forecast for the top of PR that would assist in the inevitable motoring in the island wind shadow.
We rehearsed it hour by hour, did route meteograms based on different rates of travel, identified bailout points and locations (not many....) checked the forecast for several days for stability and, when it all appeared to hang together went for it. It went pretty much as per plan A.
We left Samana at about 5pm as the sea breeze was easing below 20kts and sailed down the long eastern shore of the DR until, at about 5am, it peeled away from us and we entered the Mona proper. We then stayed close hauled pretty much all the way across with the high winds of the day building just behind us. Once in the lee of the PR coast around sunset we motorsailed to San Juan, arriving about 6am, in time to get an entry slot with a Disney cruise ship, two container vessels and a cargo freighter. It was quite a convoy!
We are going to spend a few days here enjoying the city. The marina fees are WAY less than a hotel. Then we are only an overnight sail from Culebra, where we plan to have a little diving 'vacation' before stacking Leela and heading for home.