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It is really hard to believe that, one month ago, we were in Georgetown, Bahamas. Today, we are waking up in Brewers Bay, St. Thomas, USVI. No, we didn’t do this in one go. For a second time going south, we have done the Thorny Path. The Thorny Path is a whole bunch of going east into the trade winds, wind directly on the nose of the boat, with lots of big waves and swell bumping you around. If you don’t carefully plan your weather windows, it is a very uncomfortable series of passages. But, thankfully, with lots of weather planning and even more patience, it is mildly comfortable 😉.
The first leg of our journey south took us to Luperon, Dominican Republic and we really thought we would be there for several weeks, waiting for a good weather window to brave the north coast of the Dominican Republic to the eastern town of Samana. We also thought we would do the same waiting in Samana, DR, before crossing the infamous Mona Passage that takes you from DR to Puerto Rico. Well, no. We waited just five days in Luperon before a perfect window to Samana presented itself. We had a forecast of light wind and only one-foot seas. Still, we wanted to be sure. We consulted with Chris Parker, a well-known and reliable weather router out of mainland US and a former cruiser himself. He echoed our feeling that these conditions were rare and we should go! So, along with three buddy boats, we left Luperon on Sunday April 26, and motor sailed for 25 hours, to the Marina Puerto Bahia in Samana, Dominican Republic. The passage was just as easy as forecasted. Nice!
And then? Well, the right weather window to cross the Mona Passage popped up! We had just 48 hours to rest, fuel up, grab a few groceries, and share a wonderful dinner and lots of laughs with the crew of our buddy boats. On Wednesday April 29, there were six of us cruising boats in total, clearing out of the Dominican Republic. This was no small task in itself. The process took two hours and included a boat inspection by the Armada (Dominican Navy).
And then we were off! We started our crossing at 1100 hours on April 29 (late in the morning due to the delay from clearing out) and we had beautiful conditions. Our only concerns centred around the incredible amounts of floating debris caused by recent heavy rainfalls. Trash and branches littered the waterway. The worst was a full tree that one of our buddy boats sighted at dusk. Four of us boats were an hour or so behind him and due to arrive at the “tree” location in the dark. Yikes! Thankfully, our tree sighting buddy boat was able to give us the latitude and longitude of the tree, which we all pinned in our chart plotters. This is why we love buddy boating! The information sharing is incredible, plus it really increases the fun quotient 😊. All six boats chatted over WhatsApp through the night, keeping all of us entertained and informed. How did we do this with no cell service in the middle of the Mona Passage? We all have Starlink and turned on “Ocean Mode” to have uninterrupted access while offshore. Amazing!
We arrived in Puerto Real, Puerto Rico at noon on April 30. Sigh, time to rest for a few days. Puerto Real is a small fishing village with an easy, safe anchorage and a great dinghy dock. The town had most of what we needed to refresh ourselves for our next leg across the southern coast of Puerto Rico. We dined with friends, had a great evening of drinks and laughs on our buddy boat Altair (Ian and Hannah), spent many mornings grabbing an inexpensive breakfast from the local bakery, walked the town streets to take in the local vibe, and even managed to get Ocean into the local dog groomers for a much-needed de-shedding treatment. She walked out of there looking like a rock star!
Although we were comfortable in Puerto Real, the weather needed us to press on. On Thursday May 7, we were off to tackle the southern coast of Puerto Rico. This is another leg of true easting into the trade winds but with a higher level of difficulty due to the acres of sargassum that float along the coastal waters. This thick seaweed can rarely be avoided and annoyingly gets wrapped around our boat propeller, causing a significant drop in speed. How do we handle it? Every so often (maybe once an hour or two), we have to stop the boat and go into reverse. This chops up the weed and spits it off the prop. We then resume forward propulsion, but with the boat moving at our normal cruising speed once again. It is a frustrating exercise but it works!
Along the south coast of Puerto Rico, we made just two stops. The first was to Isla Baja de Muertos (Coffin Island) for one night and the second was to Salinas, a small marina town near the south eastern end of Puerto Rico, for several nights.
Salinas is a wonderful stop for many cruisers. It is easy to rent a car here (just $60 USD for the day) so you can drive to San Juan or any of the local towns to stock up on food and supplies. There are several Walmarts, Sam’s Club, Costco, PetSmart, Home Depot, Auto Zone. Really, every store you can think of from mainland US. This is such a big deal to us cruisers, who have had little access to stock up on fresh fruit, vegetables, boat parts and, in our case, dog food. We were even able to get a replacement anchor light (which died way back in Mayaguana, Bahamas) via Amazon. The other amazing part of Salinas for us this year was re-connecting with our sister boat “Key of Sea”. We met Ana and John in Green Cove Springs, Florida when both our boats (both Beneteau 473s) were on land getting necessary upgrades and repairs. We really hit it off and were excited for them when they headed off to Grenada last year, in 2025. They have now made their way back north to Puerto Rico and are planning a big jump to Bonaire in another month. Seeing them again and sharing stories and laughs was a real highlight of our time in Salinas.
This past Thursday, we weighed anchor and headed out from Salinas. It was our roughest passage, with 5-foot seas growing to 8 feet but the entire crew (yes, Ocean too!) did a great job managing the ten-hour trip. We landed at Green Beach, Vieques in the Spanish Virgin Islands, had a quick rest and then up at dawn to arrive here, in Brewers Bay, USVI. We were exhausted but our friends on Indigo Lady (Dave and Lisa) were already here and waiting to greet us, making our arrival warm and fun. We had cruised with Indigo Lady extensively in 2023 and even visited them in their home in New Hampshire in the autumn months of 2024. They were a sight for sore eyes and Dave’s awesome pizza last night was a yummy delight for our bellies 😊. We will spend several days with them as we both await a weather window to head further south. Sigh, the last few weeks have been hectic and fun and stressful and exciting. Passages may be good or bad, but we find they are much more enjoyable when we have our cruising friends alongside, old and new, sharing stories and laughs. Add to that the comfort of a beautiful rainbow or sunset in a newfound anchorage, it is easy to remember why we keep doing this. Yup, that is cruising 😊.
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AuthorVictoria is a hiker, dog-lover, blog writer and planner extraordinaire. Oh, yeah and she is kind of fond of living on a boat. Categories
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