We're on our second night of coasting along the north shore of Hispaniola and having a great sail under clear skies and perfect winds. Last night we departed Luperon, DR at 10:30pm. The first 10 miles were boisterous as we rounded Cape Patilla in 6 foot seas and gusty winds, but as we came abeam the town of Puerto Plata we came closer inshore and picked up the night lee and both winds and seas moderated. We don't know how the iron men in wooden ships managed it: we are using radar to paint the coastline for us, so we can see exactly how far off the beach we are, we watch the depth sounder to confirm our distance off, we have programmed in our night's route into the gps/chartplotter so it shows our planned course line on the electronic chart and our position relative to that line as well as the coastline. We also keep an eye on the good old magnetic compass which relies nothing electronic. We can see lights along the shoreline all the way, but even so, without all the electro nic aids it would be extremely difficult to navigate this coastline on these pitch black nights of no moon.

All of the trip along this coast is upwind, so we have been motoring with both engines with the mainsail up, adding anything from nothing to several knots to our speed, depending on the angle to the wind as we follow the coastline contours, keeping between 1/2 and 1 mile off to take advantage of the katabatic winds coming off the land at night. Right now with 14 knots coming off the land at roughly 85 degrees on our starboard beam we're averaging 7 knots on the 55 mile run. Tonight we pulled up the anchor at 12:30 am and got under way as soon as we got the main up. We rounded Cape Frances Viejo two hours ago in benign conditions, which was a happy event, because that cape is famous for strong adverse current and big seas, but this weather window has had several days of light tradewinds, which have been pushed back by a weather system far to the north. So seas and currents are considerably less than typical.

We expect to make today's anchorage at Puerto del Valle around noon. We'll spend the rest of the day today (Thursday) and all night there and then head out at first light on Friday to round the last cape at the farthest east end of Hispaniola to cross the Mona Passage to Puerto Rico. If all goes well, that will be a 24 hour passage and we'll make landfall sometime in the morning hours Saturday.

Cheers to you all, Jack, Sherri, Toby