Mona Passage - Cap Cana, Dominican Republic to Boqueron, Puerto Rico

Mona was a bitch for the first three hours with moderate winds (15 knots) out of the SE and 10-12' swells from the East. Conditions improved as the day progressed, but she was cranky for most of the voyage. All in all, conditions were reasonable for this body of water; there are no shortage of horror stories out there. Sea state was forecast to improve on Monday, but a high probability of squalls were forecast and we elected to take some lumps over squalls, hence our Sunday departure.
Clearing out of the Dominican Republic was quite a fiasco.
Our preference was to depart Cap Cana after 11pm, when the katabatik winds from land, knock back the waves and swell and facilitate a comfortable covernight rossing. The local authorities, customs, immigration and navy inspect the boat and issue the despacho papers, but only between 6am and 6pm, and once the despacho is issued, one must depart the country immediately.
The authorities and entourage arrived at 6:30am and inspected and cleared Lamb Chop first. Next they moved aboard Kaos and there were nine (9) people plus Alan and I on our flybridge, filling out the paper work. We had been told that a $20 fee would be required by the Navy, but it turned out that an additional $20 was required. Our lack of the Spanish language combined with their limited English presented some barriers and we were not sure who or what the additional $20 was for, but inorder to get our papers, we paid it, and were told we must depart within the next 30 minutes.


12-27-2010 Boqueron, Puerto Rico
After a lumpy nine hour voyage across the Mona Passage, we welcomed Puerto Rico to our Port, and especially the Boqueron anchorage. Once the anchor was down and the boat secure, Alan decided to start the generator to give us some air conditioning…….turned the switch and nothing! That meant a trip into the stifling hot engine room. Not what any captain wants after a long, lumpy crossing and especially a captain that was green for most of the voyage. Alan replaced a fuse, closed the engine hatch, and voila, the generator started, but not for long. After a few seconds, she spluttered and died….. back into the steamy bowels of the ship….this time it was an impeller replacement; engine hatch closed once again. Two of the three AC units ran, but the one in our cabin just pumped warm air. You guessed……back into the hell hole. With all the rolling across the Mona, that AC unit lost it’s prime as the hull lifted out of the water. After a few adjustments it operated as advertised; comfort at last!

As required, we called the 24 hour US Customs to report our arrival and after providing our pertinent details, were told there was nothing they could do at that time and that we need to call the local authorities in Mayaguez first thing in the morning.

Monday is cruise ship arrival day in Mayaguez, and the phone number we were given was not the correct one. After calling three more different numbers, we were asked for our decal number, and given a clearance number and not required to present ourselves in Mayaguez….that was easy. Our Canadian buddy boat called in the morning and also received instant clearance