Good weather winds are hard to get between DR and Puerto Rico, so we decided to do the trip in one go, 250 nautical miles. We heard from other people about how hard this trip is and how wild the Mona passage between the two countries can be for months. We were worried about it so we used Chris Parker again for forecasting like we did traveling from Turks and Caicos. We also joined a knowledge sharing group of sailors in Luperon who were also planning crossings to Puerto Rico.
Once we got a clear window and the go ahead from Chris Parker, we began the check out process with immigration and the Armada (navy) in Luperon. The Armada told us that in order to get the required paperwork to leave we had to pay a brand new $500 fee. Although some locals were telling us not to pay it, we decided to follow what they said and pay it. After paying, they told us to come back in a few hours for the papers. After a few hours the Armada decided that due to weather issues they would not give us the paperwork to permit us to leave. We showed them the clear weather reports, and although the local guy called the head armada people in the capital, they still refused to issue the paperwork. We talked to many local friends, who all told us to leave without the paperwork, so that’s what we ended up doing, but it left a bad feeling.
We got underway on November 19th, at first light, with our buddy boat Blue MIst. We were a bit sad waving goodbye to our other friends and to Luperon. We just loved our time there, but it was time to move on if we ever wanted to see more of the islands we started this whole adventure for. This was the time to go, the sea state was calm and the wind was not too strong to motor against, although not at an angle that we could sail with most of the trip.
After about 6 hours, I started to run a fever. It progressively got worse, and my head started hurting, then I started having gastro symptoms. At one point it started to rain and I just lay there with rain pouring on me trying to cool down. Eventually Douglas had to get some sleep so he left me alone in the cockpit. with a tether on I couldn’t reach over the side of the boat so I was just throwing up on the deck. It was miserable. I called our lovely friends Ross and Louise on Blue Mist and let them know that I was in rough shape. I asked if they saw anything on AIS that I should watch to let me know, because I might miss it. They were wonderful and kept checking on me until Douglas woke up and took over.
We also had an issue with our shaft overheating at the very start for a few minutes and intermittent issues with sludge in our fuel system. The most exciting thing was a flying fish jumping into the cockpit and right into my butt as I was laying down on my side on the first night. The worst thing that happened was that our buddy boat lost their engine for an hour or so on the afternoon of the second day while we were in a little bit of rough seas off the eastern coast of DR. We also turned off our engine at that time and sailed along with them as they made repairs. Luckily they were able to get the engine restarted and we got back underway heading in the right direction. Sludge in the fuel was again the culprit.
My illness went on for about 24 hours and left me dehydrated and lacking energy. I felt useless and Douglas was a champ. He says that I was the champ for letting him get any sleep given how sick I was. The weather was no issue. The only thing we saw that maybe the authorities were concerned about was some debris in the water from recent flooding events.
It became dead calm as we approached Puerto RIco and we had an easy time dropping anchor in Puerto Real bay at 3:45AM January 21st, about 45 hours into the trip. We were awoken at 8AM by US customs who wanted to do a video call with us as part of the check in process. Douglas was still asleep, and said something like, “What, now? We are naked right now!”. They waited! Hahah!
