Seeking safe harbor!
Goodbye Puerto Rico, hello Bahamas Dominican Republic!
Hurricane season was right around the corner as such, we needed to start making our way North. With the Bahamas as the final destination we were looking at approximately a 3 to 4 day passage. Our longest to date, you can bet I was nervous! We encountered many firsts including catching/cleaning a fish, birdo visitors, electrical storms, HUGE waves, and even an unexpected stop to seek safe harbor!
After checking and preparing the required entrance paperwork and fees in the post-Covid cruising world, we scheduled our departure date. Finding a weather window to avoid tropical storms (and the heavy winds that accompany) but still have enough wind to sail can be tricky.
Table of Contents
What is passage planning?
*For the non-sailors of the ground, planning a passage (even one as short as 4 days) consists of many steps. Firstly, are the entrance requirements of the country in which you wish to visit on a personal vessel. These can vary greatly from country to country and are largely dependent on your country of citizenship. Food prep is an obvious next step. Primarily, to ready quick easy meals to eat en route especially if you’re prone to seasickness. Weather routing is probably the most important step as this dictates not only your time at sea but the path you’ll take to get there.*
Our float plan
aka (game plan)
We planned on “checking in” to the Bahamas at the city of Matthew Town in the Southern island of Great Inagua. So our expected path took us along the treacherous Northern coast of the island of Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti). Why is it considered so rough? The Northern coast is consistently battered by the easterly trade winds and with few tenable anchorages, it can be a difficult passage no matter the coarse direction. In addition, one will be working with a lee shore which is never ideal. *Lee shore=boat in between wind and shore* An important book to have on board whilst sailing in the Caribbean is ‘the bible’. No, not the Holy Book but Bruce Van Sant’s “A Gentleman’s Guide to Passages South”. Writing detailed ideal routes throughout the Caribbean given topography and weather conditions known to frequent the area, this book is an invaluable resource.
Our Day-by-day Logbook
AKA Captain's Log 😉
Day_01 - May 2nd 2022
Boobies!, Mahi-Mahi, dolphins, and great weather! An absolutely awesome start to our trip!
We departed San Juan, PR before the sunrise waving goodbye to the city we fell in love with. Sailing along the Northern coast of Puerto Rico was absolutely lovely. The flat waters and light winds of the morning allowed us to get a little morning yoga in underway! Tradewinds generally start picking up daily around 1000. We hugged the coastline until then and peeled off slightly North to sail on a beam towards the open ocean. We had the good luck to spot a pod of dolphins riding our bow wave!
We planned to sail straight through to have the most time in the Bahamas as possible. As such, with only 2 of us we sleep in shifts so someone is always “on watch” to watch for obstacles, storms, wind speeds, etc. We had previously trialed 6 hour shifts but found that Jon and I do better with 3 hour shifts.
I awoke to start my second watch and found a stowaway. This cutie is a female juvenile brown booby! We were able to determine the sex by her feet, yellow in color vs grey green in males. Juvenile brown boobies do not carry the distinctive contrasting colors of adults and are primarily dark brown. After taking some photos, we shooed her off our solar panels as she was making an absolute mess! How rude!
Jon and I by no means consider ourselves fishermen. But any time we find ourselves “offshore” we troll lines in the water, in an attempt to catch something. Luck was on our side because approximately 15nm off Puerto Rico we caught our first Mahi Mahi! This common table fish goes by many names including mahi mahi, common dolphinfish, dorado, and simply dolphin. Sought after by cruisers everywhere, we were quite excited to snag this tasty fish! That being said, I was quite emotional and proceeded to cry my eyes out, like audibly sobbing cry my eyes out. My sensitive heart just couldn’t take it! But, she died a quick death (thanks to Jon) and fed us for over a week!
We planned to make the crossing between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic far North of the infamous Mona Passage with her turbulent currents and well known hourglass shoals. But our crossing was not without dangers. Roughly halfway between the islands, on my watch I noticed a large amount of lightning in the distance. Goody… Thunderstorms were once one of my favorite things on the planet. But living on a sailboat which generally has the tallest lightning rod in the area has (sadly) changed my opinion. Thankfully, the storms stayed South of us but the frequency of visible lighting was enough for us to place our electronics in Faraday bags for protection. Thankfully, that safety measure was unnecessary and the rest of the night passed without incident.
Day_02 - May 3rd 2022
One for the books for sure!
tl:dr Hitting speeds of 20.5 kts, SURFING down massive waves, losing our jib sheets and seeking safe harbor!
At sunrise we found ourselves about 27nm North of the Bay of Samana and I was privileged enough to have the sunrise shift. Watching the sun crest over the horizon, from your floatable home with the sounds of water coursing over the hull and no land in sight is truly unequaled. There’s nothing truly like it and will make a nature lover out of even the biggest critic.
As the day progressed we continued West along the Northern coast. Occasionally able to access the internet, we found the forecast called for winds increasing to about 20knots this evening into the next morning. Knowing this we decided to “reef early and reef often” as every prudent sailor should.
If you don’t know, around 75mi/120km North of Puerto Rico is the Puerto Rican Trench. This submarine depression at 497mi/800km long has the deepest point (Milwaukee Deep) in the Atlantic Ocean. At 27,493ft/8,380m, the Milwaukee Deep sits at the western end of the trench. Now you may ask, “why do I care?” Well, we happened to be sailing immediately East of it. With wind increasing throughout the day from the East, every good sailor knows that wind over water creates “fetch” or increased wave height. What’s more, the depth of the trench increases dramatically the further west you go and caused “breaking wave”. I know I know, it’s kinda complicated. So for ease of understanding, it’s comparable to a person walking, tripping and falling. The speed of the top of your body is greater than the speed of your feet causing you to topple over. All of this is important, STAY WITH ME.
Jon here to explain the events. So as nightfall was approaching, the wind was gusting 30 kts, which really isn’t too bad with our point of sail, but every once in a while we would just get a massive MASSIVE ROLLER. The frequencies became higher and they continued to grow in size. We think there must have been some really crazy swell compounding with the waves. We found ourselves surfing straight down these massive waves (I want to say 15 feet if not more…). The other issue was they were super steep. Sounds fun right? Well, it stops being fun around 15 kts of boat speed and it’s your home. Granted, Angela has a much lower threshold of seeking safe harbor than me. So once we reached our top speed of 20.5kts (!) pitchpoling started to enter our minds (when the stern of the boat pitches/rolls forward OVER its bow; usually due to burying the bow). We change course to take the waves on our aft quarter rather than surfing straight down as well as working on slowing the boat by decreasing our windage as much as possible; we unfortunately (depending on who you ask) don’t have a drogue (essentially a parachute that’s trailed/dragged behind the boat on a long line attached to the stern). Maybe we should get one?
With our new adjusted course we were going almost due north when we needed to go east-northeast as well as since we don’t have much freeboard (the height of a ship’s side between the waterline and the deck or simply how high the boat is out of the water) we took a breaking wave over the aft quarter and flooded the cockpit. Making it worse, we had our cockpit door open which allowed the mass of water into the boat and down into the port hull!! Now, cue LOUD ALARMS going off! What alarms you ask? This is really where the concern set in. As we are still new to the boat it took us a minute to realize it was (only) the bilge alarms. It was here we started to evaluate the situation and when Angela started to succeed with getting Jon out of “race mode”.
No longer heading the direction we needed with thoughts of possible electrical system damage from the water we took on. We changed course to South-east towards the Dominican Republic.
After changing course the shackles popped open on our both barber haulers (a type of rigging for the lines/sheets controlling the jib). From racing I KNOW BETTER to tape the shackles shut, but I’m not sure why I didn’t this time…
Angela here again – So with our jib flogging we furled (rolled up) the headsail and continued to sail towards Luperon, DR. Jon (against my wishes but clipped in) went forward to get a sail tie on it or SOMETHING to keep it from unfurling. So here I am, adrenaline coursing through my veins, watching him try to save our sail. After a very stressful few minutes and me begging him to come back, he made his way back to the safety of the cockpit. Sadly, the problem was unresolved because the clue (lower corner of the sail) was too high up to secure safely. So the jib would slowly start to unfurl which we would then furl in more to keep it from flogging. Until, as I’m sure some of you guessed it, we ran out of furling line!
So now the headsail is flogging, and Jon is going CRAZY watching our sail beat itself. He continues to try to go forward, but I’m putting my foot down. Thankfully it was only flogging for a short bit before we were protected, and working our way into the anchorage. Thankfully, the only damage was a frayed leech cord (tightens the back of the sail).
Luperon came highly recommended to us from a couple cruiser friends, Eric and Jami on SV Oleta! They spent many months here, as it’s a well known hurricane hole with a large sailing community. They put us in contact with a local liveaboard, Alison who helped us traverse the notoriously difficult entrance at dark. Talk about a guiding light in the darkness! Our nerves fried, we eventually dropped anchor in the protected anchorage, temporally secured the headsail, and could finally breathe easy around 10/11pm or so! 
Day_03 - May 4th 2022
We checked in then immediately checked out, but not without a little exploring first!
After an uneventful night, we awoke refreshed and after checking the weather made the decision to stay in Luperon until the next morning. We checked trusty Noonsite for the appropriate check in protocol and gathered the necessary documentation and fees. After visiting the navy and securing an appointment for the navy to board the vessel and grant us our despacho (clearing out papers) tomorrow, we were able to explore and see for ourselves what left our friends so charmed.
Our tummies were grumbling so we stopped at D’La France on a recommendation for some pizza. We were not disappointed! Excellent prices with great pizza, we would gladly take a second trip!
We decided to take a wander around town and found ourselves at Wendy’s, the “real cruiser’s bar”. With just a few people there, we quickly made friends with the bar manager Yanna and other liveaboard cruisers! After a few drinks, we made our way back to H.O.M.E.S. and Jon climbed up the forestay to reattach our sheets before settling in to depart the next morning.
Day_04 - May 5th 2022
Had the Navy board us in the morning to give us the go-ahead to leave
After reattaching our sheets and getting an inspection from the Navy, we received our despacho and were officially on our way to Great Inagua. Thankfully, the rest of our passage was quite unremarkable. We had a lovely downwind sail with easterly winds varying between 9 and 16 kts.
After turning slightly North, night fell with a beautiful sunset captured by Jon. The night was clear with light winds. We even saw the magical bioluminescence in our wake as we sliced through the calm waters.
Day_05 - May 6th 2022
Finally dropped the hook in the Bahamas!!
With the sound of our windlass (electric winch for anchor) lowering our anchor to the white sand bottom of Matthew Town, Great Inagua we breathed a sigh of relief. We checked in with the proper authorities, secured our cruising and fishing license, and our passage is COMPLETE! We even had enough time to jump in and enjoy the crystal clear blue water that makes the Bahamas famous!
Conclusion
Definitely noteworthy, this passage was one for the books! Filled with delightful moments and some very nervy ones, this sail helped us grow more confident in our vessel and our skills. There’s always a silver lining!
4 Responses
So glad you’re both safe and were able to finally chill! What a crazy adventure. 🏝⛵️
Why not get rid of the jib sheet shackles and just tie bowlines?
For the jib sheets we do tie a bowline. However, rather than using the same sheets and adding a snatch block as the barber hauler, they are their own lines that are shackled. I don’t usually untie the sheets, I just pop the barb. hauler shackle on and off during jibs. However I think because we were planning on going to be down wind for so long i just took them off…