Adding bang to the holidays

Vieques

Well, we concluded our week in Samana............said goodbye to the military (with more money), and set off. We knew the next passage would not be ordinary. The Mona Passage is the strait between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Going directly east (into the prevailing wind) and across shoals, weird currents, and the ever present lightning storms. We consulted our crack weather router Clint Parkhurst again (and two other marine weather websites). Oh, great...........light conditions tomorrow. Off we go...........

Neptune (controller of all things aquatic) doesn't like unscheduled PTO and since Kirstin and I had lounged in Samana for a week, we should have known we were in for it.

As we left the marina, the wind promptly picked up and wham...........it was game on. First 1/3 of the 120 mile crossing featured very strong wind, big seas; in short it was nothing like we had been promised in the weather forecast. But we do get about 40 miles into the crossing with no trouble.

Then, our radar starts picking up squalls.............and more squalls...........and many more squalls. They seem to be drawn to us like heat seeking missiles. Crazy wind, rain..........and no progress. We experienced 25-35 knot wind right in our face, whichever way we tried to go. Oh, and L'ORIENT's anti-collision system took a few minutes off just in time for a freighter to emerge from the foggy storm about 200 meters behind us, crossing our path............whew.

We bobbed and weaved until finally we saw a gap in the squalls. We put all our sails up and apologized in advance to our boat for what we were doing. In strong wind we maxed out our speed and got the boat going over 8.4 knots for about 5 straight hours. We were trying to get out of the Mona Passage as fast as we could.............and it worked. We arrived in Boqueron and had completed an important part of our trip.

La Parguera

Skipping across the bottom of Puerto Rico (Boqueron, Parguera, Ponce, Salinas), we have arrived here in Vieques (the Spanish Virgin Islands). Vieques was a military bombing target for a long time, and there is still live ordnance in the water and apparently on shore............I'm sure all accurately marked by the military. The other hazard here is Sharky..........a local guy who offers to "watch" your dingy while you walk to town. The implication is that if you don't pay him, you never see your dingy again. I wish I could say to him in Spanish, "Hey amigo, I kill people for money.............you are my friend, I kill you for nothing".  Anyway, we're going to take a quick look around here and then head tomorrow to Culebra, which should be special.

Mangrove Houses in Parguera