Passagemaking: The Northern Coast of the Dominican Republic and the Mona Passage

In order to travel from Luperon to Puerto Rico, we had to cross 300 miles of some of the most grueling and unforgiving seas. It’s the thorniest part of The Thorny Path to Windward. Bruce Van Sant provides excellent instructions on how to sail these waters under prevailing conditions. However, we decided to wait for weather windows with light winds and motor sail across as quickly as we could. We broke the journey up into two long overnight passages.

The Northern Coast of the Dominican Republic (Luperon to Samana)

We read tons of horror stories about sailing the Northern Coast of the DR. Sailing along the coast line into 20+knt winds and 8 foot seas is suicidal. So we waited for a window of light winds and calm seas. We detached Kairos from the grimy mooring ball in Luperon and left the anchorage at 7:00am on April 24^th. Our friends on Westwind and Imagine² had left just a couple of hours earlier. The water was like glass as we motored out the channel into the Atlantic Ocean.

Motor sailing at 7 knots, we quickly caught up to the other boats. About 3 hours into our uneventful sail, we spotted an Endevour 40 off our starboard side. We hailed the boat on the VHF, and just as we suspected, it was our friends, s/v Delancey, that we had met back in Turks and Caicos. They had just left Ocean World Marina (15 miles east of Luperon) and were also heading to Samana. For the first time, we’d be crossing a passage with multiple buddy boats nearby. This gave us a warm and fuzzy feeling as the sun was setting.

Except for our dolphin visitors, the entire passage was pretty uneventful. We did run into one squall at night, which s/v Delancey was kind enough to warn us about since we couldn’t see the clouds approaching. With their warning, we were able to get the pups below deck and put away the cockpit cushions. The storm brought heavy rains, but the seas remained calm. The squall also brought 20 to 25 knot winds aft of the beam allowing us to sail on a broad reach. While motor sailing during the squall we were able to maintain a speed of about 8.5 knots!

We made great time and arrived in Samana at 4:30am in the dark. The marina didn’t open until 8:00am, so we decided to anchor in the harbor and get a few hours of much needed sleep. We were abruptly awoken at 8:00am on the dot by 2 men knocking on our boat. The man wearing a camouflage uniform was the Commandante (DR navy officer) and the other man was the harbor master. In the DR you must travel with a despacho, which is a form that the Commandante issues to your boat stating your departure port and your destination port. We quickly presented him with our despacho and explained that we were just resting until the marina opened. He wanted to search our boat, but after meeting our two viscous boat dogs, he decided against it. Despite all of the local strays, people in the Dominican Republic are still scared of large dogs. The pooches earned their dinner that day. After giving us some grief about not staying in the harbor, the men left and we booked it straight for the marina.

The Puerto Bahia Marina is located in a fabulously luxurious resort with infinity pools, nice restaurants, and upscale bars. The marina was well kept and incredibly clean. It was a nice change from Luperon. People can vacation at this all-inclusive resort and relax in the sterile environment without ever experiencing the Dominican Republic culture.

We stayed at the marina for four nights. We hired some locals to clean our hull, deck, and stainless steel. Kairos looked as good as new. We rented a car to explore Samana and the nearby waterfall. We also got caught up on laundry and soaked in the infinity pools with frozen drinks. It was a relaxing time, but anxiety about the upcoming Mona Passage was in the back of our heads.

The Mona Passage (Samana to Boqueron)

It’s safe to say that I was DREADING the Mona Passage. I’d be stupid not to. It’s arguably the most dangerous passage in the Caribbean due to its shoals, currents, and building storms. Not to mention that we had just finished a 22 hour passage to Samana and here we were about to do it again. We decided to leave the morning of April 29^th. The forecast was calling for calm winds and seas, very similar to our previous passage. We estimated that we could make it to Boqueron, PR in 24 hours in good weather. We pulled out of the marina at 9:00am after refueling at the fuel dock only an hour behind s/v Delancey.

I was never scared of lightning growing up. Sure our softball games would get cancelled or we would have to leave the pool at the first sight of it, but I always thought I had a better chance of winning the lottery than getting struck by lightning. That changed during a backpacking trip in Aspen about 4 years ago. Rob and I were hiking the Four Pass Loop, a 26 mile trail, 2-3 night backpacking trail with 10,000 feet elevation gain over 4 mountain passes. The trail is breathtaking with snow -capped mountains, wildflowers, and glacier lakes. It is some of the most beautiful scenery in Colorado. In Colorado, hikers summit mountains before noon in order to be back below tree line before afternoon thunderstorms roll in. Sometimes this means starting a hike at 2:00am. Even still, we hear stories of hikers getting struck by lightning every year. Just last year 13 people and a dog were struck on top of Mt. Bierstadt when an early storm struck at 11:00am.

We had just summited Trail Rider Pass on the Four Pass Loop when a storm rolled in. Rob, puppy Baxter, and I ran down the mountainside as quickly as we could. Hail was raining down on us and we could hear the thunder echo loudly through the peaks. We could feel electricity in the air and for the first time ever, I was petrified of getting struck by lightning.

The Mona Passage turned out to be equally terrifying. The first half was pretty uneventful. We had calm weather and seas just as forecasted. But as the sun started setting, we ran into squalls that were building off the coast of Puerto Rico and traveling north west. At first we tried navigating around the storms. We looked up into the night sky and followed the stars. But soon there were no stars, just rain clouds and we found ourselves in the center of a massive lightning storm.

We watched in horror as lightning bolts appeared to touch the water all around us. It was off our port side, in front of us, off our starboard side. There was no escaping. This is a terrible feeling when the tallest thing around is a metal rod that travels directly into your living room. However, there was little we could do. We were already wearing our lifejackets and harnesses. We made sure to stay away from the mast and shrouds. We turned on the autopilot and stood away from all metal objects including the helm. We double checked that our phones and iPad were disconnected from their chargers. If we were to get struck, then there’s a good chance we would lose our instrumentation. Both our phones and iPad are equipped with Garmin Bluecharts, which would act as our backup chartplottter. The only thing left to do was hold course and power through as quickly as possible.

Both s/v Kairos and s/v Delancey made it across the passage without any lightning strikes. In the morning hours the storms subsided and we made our way to Boqueron. By now the skies were blue and the morning sun was shining down on us. We were so relieved to have the Mona Passage behind us. We were able to check in with customs and immigration over the phone. “Welcome back to the United States”, they told us.