The (insert every curse word known to man)ing Mona Passage

In high school one of my best friends, Anna Ewart, had an older brother who used to swear, a lot. He was only two years older and really smart and athletic and popular, but when Anna would piss him off (break one of his tennis racquets, sass him, or just be around) he would chase her and beat her up. Most of the time she hid and this is when Dave would swear - just unleash tangents of curse words. Lots of curse words in what seemed like unending strings of f-bombs, the b word, and other ones that I didn’t know at age 15 and they just kept getting worse. Anna and I, of course, picked up on this tendency. I hadn’t swore or thought about using that string of curse words until we hit the Mona, then I wanted to swear at the Mona Passage until my face turned blue.

I think of blue water sailing as a bar fight. You have the best intentions, the night is going great, then one little thing goes wrong and you are getting yourself an asswhooping. The sea isn’t looking to beat you up, but it does not suffer fools, ignorance, arrogance, fear, indifference, incompetence… actually there are a lot of things you cannot get away with at sea. But the Mona is a completely different girl. Whereas you have a chance in the ocean, you do not in the Mona – because the Mona is a street fight. The Mona is the guy waiting outside of the bar for you with a tire iron. The Mona is Edward Norton in Fight Club. Anyone who tells you otherwise you can punch right in the gut.

We were to attack the Mona on Monday. On Sunday our plan was to run into town, spend the rest of our pesos, buy some diet coke, and check out with customs. Best laid plans. I sometimes wonder how much time in my life I have waited for customs officials – it has to be days… at least. We waited for a few hours on the benches outside of the customs official’s office until finally we gave them the rest of our pesos and left the harbor, which they were insistent on. We moved to the island just outside of Samana harbor, which was unfortunately a very rolly anchorage.

A lovely, but rolly island anchorage.

Before I tell you our story, I should first tell you the way you should do it. Due to my indepth researched through the charts, local knowledge, and the bible (The Gentleman’s Guide to Passages South: The Thornless Path to Windward by Bruce VanSant). From compiling all of the information from these sources I have derived what I believe is the best way to cross the Mona (if you have to, but otherwise, do your best to avoid it).

Crossing the Mona

Needs:

• a working engine
• 2 nights and a day with E 10-15 knot winds or less & less than 5 ft. seas OR 2 nights and a day with ESE 15 knot winds or less & 4-6 ft. seas

Musts:

• Leave Samana early afternoon to dusk to use the night lee and then hug the shore to use the island lee
• Leave Punta Macao (the last point on Dominican land) at dawn (between 6-8 am) to avoid the storms that are funneled through the Mona from the south shore of Puerto Rico – these storms build and hit at night and are lessened during the day
• Rough conditions lessen after Isla Desecheo as you are now in the lee of Puerto Rico
• Mayaguez is well marked and can be entered at night if necessary (it is never recommended to enter an anchorage at night)

Waypoints:

1. N19.09.00 W69.07.00 End of Samana harbor buoys.
2. N19.05.00 W69.00.00 Start of hugging the lee of DR.
3. N18.47.20 W68.31.50 Punta Macao, where you leave DR land.
4. N18.40.00 W67.55.00 End of Hourglass Shoal.
5. N18.22.50 W67.29.20 Isla Desecheo.
6. N18.13.30 W67.12.70 Mayaguez entrance.

Total Miles: 155

Route:

Follow buoys out to Waypoint 1 (W1) then rhumbline to W2. Use the island lee to W3 at Punta Macao. Head offshore (at dawn) and head for W4 north of the Hourglass Shoal. Continue through the Mona, then to W5 south of Isla Desecheo. Finally continue onto W6 at the entrance of Mayaguez.

Caveats:

If anyone stumbles across this information and plans on using it, you must do your own research – DO NOT rely solely on my advice. Please consult your own guidebooks, charts, weather forecasts, etc.

Back to our story, we left Monday morning at 8 am. We no longer had Chris as a crew, but Mom was now back with us after she had previously crossed the Mona twice (once on a ferry and once on a Canadians’ Dufor sailboat). We discussed waiting until Wednesday where there was a perfect weather window, but Monday’s window also looked acceptable and we were all sick of being in the Dominican Republic so we were going. We followed the red buoys out of the harbor and from there followed the coast down. We were in the lee of the island so we had limited swell and diminished winds. By 10 pm that night we were shoving off from land at Punta Macao and starting to skirt the Hourglass Shoal. As you know, from what I mentioned earlier, you should not cross this area at night because this is where the storms are funneled and this is the time when they are the strongest.

We didn’t get any major squalls, luckily, but we did get rain and lots of nice big 20-25 knot winds gusting to 30 right on the nose. Those eastern trade winds were really trying to push us back, but luckily we still didn’t have any large wave action. By 9 am Tuesday morning we were past the Hourglass Shoal. We still don’t have an autopilot so Dad and I have been doing 2 hour shifts each this entire time, but last night Mom threw in a few hours so that Dad and I weren’t zombies today. Thank goodness too, because now we were right in the Mona – the blender that is the Mona.

When you are dealing with big swells it is usually pretty consistent in angle and severity… and usually right on your nose, but, like I mentioned earlier, the Mona is a completely different animal. Every once and a while during some big swell you get one of those lovely rouge waves that comes out of nowhere and launches tons of spray into your face and knocks your boat to a precarious angle. Well being in the Mona is like being in a washing machine of rouge waves. You have no idea where the next one was coming from or how it would rock you. After me being on the helm for 20 minutes or so and getting it by a few rouge waves which shook not only the boat but us to the very core Dad forcibly removed me from the helm and took over for a very long time. We hoped that something would calm down once we got in the lee of Puerto Rico, most likely when we passed Isla Desecheo. And it did, but that took us all day, and we pulled past Isla Desecheo at around 7 pm. We were now in the lee of Puerto Rico but still getting smashed by lesser swell (5-7 feet). By this point I had layer upon layer upon layer of crystallized salt water due to all of the spray we were getting. I had taken the last few hours of helm duty so Dad could get some sleep and Mom could continue her marathon sleeping and soon it was continuously just within sight.

My Gill Oils - the best purchase I have ever made.

Being the navigator, I knew exactly how long it was going to take us to get to Mayaguez, where you check in for customs. Yet, somehow this was not getting through to Mom or Dad and I had to continuously break the news to them that even though it looked so close it was be another few hours. By one am we were dropping the hook in Mayaguez, which, even though I do not recommend entering a harbor at night, was very well lit for big tankers to navigate the entrance. We had made it – and everything looked brighter on the other side. Like I said, do as I say, not as I do.

After a swell free few hours of sleeping we woke up to the realization that we could once again use our cell phones. We called up the harbormaster and went over to the sea wall to clear customs. Unfortunately, the seawall was owned by the cruise company and wanted to charge us $20 to tie up for the five minutes of customs. No thank you. So Dad jumped off and Mom and I did circles with the boat while he organized our re-entry into the United States. The customs agents were amazing as they identified Mom and I to our passport pictures by looking out into the bay at our boat and saying “yeah, they are both blond, that looks right.” Next time we will go straight to Boqueron and just run back up to Mayaguez to clear customs as we are soon to find out that Boqueron and Puerto Rico were just what the doctor ordered for us Dominican weary travelers.

For your consideration: the Mona didn't only take a toll on us and our boat, but also other various hardware... including Dad's wedding ring which seemed to mold to the boat's steering wheel.