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Published: April 24th 2010
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Turks and Caicos!
Making landfall at the Turks and Caicos- yeah! You know you have left the Caribbean when the islands are flat as a pancake. After staging in Boqueron, getting the boat all prepared, double checking our safety equipment, and cooking for our long passage, we were ready to go. And a perfect weather window opened up. So it was time to officially leave the Caribbean and set sail for the Turks and Caicos, a 320 mile trip (the longest we have ever done) across the dreaded Mona Passage.
Actually, the Mona is only the first 77 miles of our voyage and is the body of water between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. What makes it so treacherous is that it is where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Caribbean Sea, and all the wind and waves have to squeeze thru this small gap. Any differences between the weather conditions of these two massive bodies of water create havoc when they converge in the Mona. Also take into account that this is where the Puerto Rican Trench (the second deepest place in the world) ascends up to the hourglass shoal. The difference in depths is outstanding! We are talking thousands and thousands of feet shoaling up to 20 feet in a span no bigger than a mile. So the waves in the Mona Passage have
Jay at the Healm
Jay kicking back at the healm once we reached the Turks and Caicos. Glad that the Mona Passage is behind us! to dissipate a lot of energy as they roll in from the deepest depths of the ocean, often increasing and stacking up and peaking and crashing, making this one of the most dangerous bodies of water in the world. Add to all this the fact that the Equatorial Current runs thru here at 1-2 knots, and it can be pure chaos if the weather conditions aren’t just right. There is no doubt that the Mona Passage is our toughest challenge in our trip back home.
But we were lucky, the weather was calming down and it looked like a perfect opportunity to cross the Mona. So we planned on setting sail from Boqueron at midnight on Saturday with the hopes of making landfall at Big Sand Cay (the closest island of the Turks and Caicos) before sunset on Monday night. A couple of boats that we know had left earlier in the afternoon, and we called them on the SSB around 9:00 p.m. for the current conditions in the Mona. Unfortunately it was still pretty rough, winds 18-24 knots gusting up to 35 with big seas, 12-15 feet on the beam, crashing on top of them. It sounded wet
Caicos Bank
Jen at the bow, watching out for coral heads on the Caicos Bank. and miserable and downright dangerous. So we decided to delay our departure for another day and hope that the conditions would improve. It was super calm in Boqueron on Sunday and we checked the weather again for our trip. It looked good, so it was a go. We hoisted anchor at midnight on Sunday and set sail.
We had a great trip and it was all pretty uneventful. The conditions in the Mona had really calmed down, winds 10-15 knots and only 5-6 foot seas. However, it was a little rolly polly for the first night because of beam seas and we almost lost our dinghy (due to halyard failure) in the Mona. But once that crisis was averted and the dinghy re-secured to the davits, it was smooth sailing. We could barely see the Dominican Republic as we sailed by the next day, it was pretty hazy. And we got caught in one big squall around sunset that lasted for an hour or so, lightening and heavy rain engulfed us. But we just kept chugging along thru the night. Boy was it dark, no stars and no moon. But the good news is that we were making great
Dolphins
We had dolphins at the bow many times during our trip, awesome! time, averaging over 8 knots the entire way! So we reached Big Sand Cay by 1:30 in the afternoon on Tuesday. Unfortunately it didn’t look like a good anchorage for the night because the winds had switched out of the west, and Big Sand Cay is totally exposed. So we decided to continue on to South Caicos, about 20 miles further. We pulled in before sunset, had a celebratory drink, and then crashed from exhaustion. We had made it to the Turks and Caicos- yohoo!!!
But that is not the end of this journey. We still had 2 days of travelling to get to Provo, the main island of Turks and Caicos. And the fastest way to get there is to go over the Caicos Bank, which is very shallow (around 8 feet deep most of the way, sometime less) and littered with coral heads. You have to navigate this tricky passage in the daytime in order to avoid a disastrous collision with the uncharted elkhorn coral patches, and I would have to stand at the bow for the most harrowing parts. But it was actually delightful to travel on the banks. The water is calm and so crystal
Just Follow the Bubbles
Following the guide boat thru the tricky entrance of Turtle Cove Marina, luckily he knows which coral patches we can go over and which ones we can't- yikes! clear and beautiful, like a swimming pool, and the coral heads are very visible and easy to avoid (although we always had to keep a watchful eye). And we had many dolphins accompany us along the way, always a treat. We made it to Sapodilla Bay in 7 hours and anchored there for the night. But it was a rather unprotected anchorage and located in an industrial part of town, so we opted to push on the next day. We crossed the last 10 miles of the Caicos Bank and continued on to the north side of Provo, bound for Turtle Cove Marina.
Of course our long journey of over 400 miles at this point, still posed one challenge. In order to get into Turtle Cove Marina we have to maneuver our boat thru a very narrow and very shallow inlet, weaving left and right to avoid dangerous coral patches. It is such a difficult entrance that we called for the assistance of a guide boat to lead us in. It took all of Jay’s focus to ignore the depth meter and the reef surrounding us, and to just follow the bubbles of the guide boat. But we did
Sunset
Enjoying our first sunset in the Turks and Caicos- a perfect end to our long trek. it, and are happy to report that we are resting and recovering here in the Turks and Caicos, one step closer in our long trek home.
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Gran
non-member comment
YEA
Thank God for your safe journey through a treacherous sea!!! HOPE TO SEE YOU ALL IN TEXAS SOON. LOVE