Voyage to Puerto Rico, Part 2
Sunrise on Day 2
It takes an entire day to sail around to the south side of the TCI banks. The islands themselves are only a small above-water area of the bank, which itself is quite large. The TCIs are geologically the southeast end of the Bahamas, which are the tops of big underwater mountains. As we turned more easterly, the wind picked up from the northeast and we put up our sails. We sailed on a port tack configuration for the duration of the trip and essentially it was a close haul during that time, meaning we were heeled over to the right all the way there.
Sleeping is always difficult for both of us while we’re on our rest breaks, but after the first night we were having an excellent sail as shown in this video I took as we were sailing into the morning sun. The wind direction was fantastic and we had full sails deployed. We still needed to motor to keep up a reasonable pace but we were doing well. On the second day the waves got a bit bigger but the wind was still constant and good as shown in this video. We were having a nagging issue at this point: I wanted to get an updated weather file and our shortwave would not connect. I looked at the antenna connection I made at Spanish Wells and found a small problem. I got that repaired but still couldn’t connect to my radio email.
On the second night we noticed a lot more commercial shipping traffic. We were rounding Cabo Tres Amarras in the Dominican Rep and all the shipping traffic headed for the Mona Passage rounds this point as well. We had to pay attention and keep out of the way of the ships as best we could. Fortunately we, an the big ships, had plenty of warning of each other thanks to the AIS.
The waves picked up as we moved further down the Dominican Republic coast. So not only were we heeled to the right, we also had an increasingly bumpy ride. This makes sleeping difficult when you are off shift. We switched every three or four hours, trying to sleep when we could. You can imagine that after a few days of this you get a bit sleep deprived, but not too badly. The evening of the third night I took this video. If you look closely at the beginning, you can see the crescent moon setting over Samana, Dominican Republic.
Next post: The Mona Passage
Sunset Over the Dominican Republic