We left the sheltered water of the TCI banks for deep water around sunset on Wednesday, March 23rd. We had waited two weeks for this window and were eager to go. The weather window was a little shorter than we wanted, but with the winter cold fronts becoming rare, we took what we could get. It turned out to be a challenging but rewarding 462 nautical mile passage
As anticipated, we were motoring into a fairly steep 6-8 foot swell accompanied by 3-4 foot wind waves. The winds had been blowing 20-25 knots on Tuesday, were now 15 knots, and was supposed to continue to diminish. While motoring into these wind and wave conditions is unpleasant, it was necessary to set us up for a few days of light south easterly winds in which we could make our way east to Puerto Rico. Normally, the Trade Winds would be blowing 20 knots out of the east, making this run impossible, or at least extremely miserable.
The wind and wave conditions did not diminish as quickly as we had hoped. About 18 hours into the passage our friends on Oceana decided to divert south to the Dominican Republic. The opposing wind and waves were chewing up their fuel, putting Puerto Rico out of their range. They turned south on a comfortable beam reach sail to Puerto Plata, DR, and arrived safely the next day.
Mirasol was also burning fuel at a high rate, but we were confident we could make it stretch to Puerto Rico by sailing due east rather than heading directly for Puerto Rico. This kept us from heading straight into the southeast winds and seas, and set us up for a fast beam reach sail due south once we reached Puerto Rico's longitude.
By mid day Thursday Jen and Quinn were both dealing with cases of mal de mare and the wind and seas had refused to lay down. When the trades winds were finally stalled by the cold front just north of us, we continued motorsailing due east in more comfort. We were motoring with one engine and a full main to conserve fuel, but we were fighting a 1.5 current so we were only making about 3.5 knots. We gave up on any hope of a Saturday arrival and figured on mid-day Sunday.
On Friday evening we were 200 miles due north of Puerto Rico's west coast. It was finally time to turn south. We put the helm over, rolled out the jib and shut off the engine. We were a sailboat at once again. Friday night and Saturday we enjoyed ideal sailing conditions with gentle seas and the wind on the beam. By midnight on Saturday, we were well into the Mona Passage between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.
We discussed risking a night time arrival, but in spite of our eagerness to complete the voyage, we fell back on our rule of avoiding unfamiliar landfalls at night. To set up a dawn arrival in Puerto Real, Puerto Rico, we ghosted along on a furled jib and no main through the rest of the night. We entered Puerto Real's picturesque harbor as the sun broke over the hills. It was one of our prettiest landfalls. After the sparse vegetation and arid terrain of the Bahamas and the Turks And Caicos, the lush, mountainous vistas of Puerto Rico were amazing.
This was our most challenging passage to windward, and we were happy to have it behind us! Jen took this picture of Quinn and I as we approached the west coast of Puerto Rico. A tired but happy crew.
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