01/26/2006
East Coast of the Dominican Republic


It was a quiet night and thankfully nothing of interest happened; the main sail is still holding; hopefully until we can get to Fajardo where we know there is a good sail repair facility. Dale and I alternate 3 hours on, 3 hours off watches. We try to nap as much as we can in our off hours during the day so that we can stay alert during the night, so I was proud to be able to tell Roger when he radioed about the bright light that had started him when he turned around, was just a light coming from shore without a touch of my normal panic whenever there's even the most remote possibility of a freighter in our vicinity.

We finally made it to the hourglass shoals which seemed to take forever. The currents in this area kept shoving us north and for a period, we seemed to be making a circle around our waypoint without getting any closer to it. We are officially in the Mona Passage now. Thank God its quiet. For as far as we can see, the Mona is calm.

We have been doing better than we anticipated time wise and estimate that at the rate we're traveling, we'll arrive in Puerto Rico about 1 or 2 am. We prefer to enter a new harbor in the daylight, so we're going to turn off the engine and sail from here on.

Seven of the eight boats that took off from Luperon yesterday are now scattered along the route for about 20 miles. Moon Goddess is falling further and further behind; we're guessing that she's 50 miles behind us. We worry that she'll not make it across the Mona before the window closes.