Ocean World Marina to Ponce, P.R.

Miles: 338
Hours: 61

Ocean World Marina was very civilized. I’d highly recommend staying there if you need a stop off between the Bahamas and Puerto Rico. The store in the marina has very basic provisions, but it was not unreasonable to rent a car and hit the local stores and I hear you can get the folks at the larger grocery store to come pick you up if you need to do a big run. Also, unlike Luperon, customs and immigration (and agriculture and animal control and the navy) were relatively straightforward.

The pictures never do the seas justice. A week of 30 knot winds is about 10 times what you think you see here.

The pictures never do the seas justice. A week of 30 knot winds is about 10 times what you think you see here.

We left Ocean World Marina and headed East down the Northern coast of the Dominican Republic. Much like the previous seven days, the winds quickly freshened to 25 knots in the early afternoon and the seas grew to 8 feet. As always, with our luck, right on the nose! We ducked in and anchored overnight at Rio San Juan. It was rather rolly with a swell coming around the North side all night, but we found good holding for the CQR anchor.

We continued down the Northern coast the next day and night. Captain Daddy had some really spectacular food poisoning, so for once it wasn’t just Little Pete throwing up everywhere. Our ongoing alternator issues came to a head at 3 AM, as always. Just after Captain Daddy went off-watch, the autopilot cut out due to low voltage from the house batteries. Just after a rather large wave hit us on the beam, Captain Daddy made the mistake of sticking his nose in the cockpit window to ask if everything was alright.

Captain Daddy: “Is everything alright up there?”

Captain Crunch: “It is just f@#king great!”

Captain Daddy: “Have you thought about changing our tack a bit?” (sheepishly)

Captain Crunch: “Oh wait! There are calm waves and sunshine just off to port a bit. I’ll try to get us over there a!@#%ole!”

Note to self: The person at the wheel is in control of the boat, and no other.

Captain Daddy and Little Pete get a little rest between watches.

Captain Daddy and Little Pete get a little rest between watches.

The seas finally calmed down a bit the next day as we cleared the Eastern end of the Dominican Republic. We learned a little bit about the symbols on our charts that we probably should have paid more attention too. Such as, the little wavy symbol that looks a bit like “VVVVVV” which showed up on our Garmin charts. On our Raymarine charts, once you zoom in a lot, this area was marked in text as “High breaking seas may occur at any time”. I’d read about the effect of a shallow bank near deep water before, but until you have green water boiling on the foredeck on an otherwise calm day, the lesson doesn’t really sink in. Yikes!

We anchored overnight at Mayaguez before pressing on to Ponce. I would not trust the mooring balls at Ponce Yacht and Fishing Club again for a vessel of our size. We dragged one about 50 feet before deciding to tie off at the fuel dock until sunrise. Otherwise, I have to say that the well marked channels at Mayaguez and Ponce were a welcome sight.

It is surprising how often we get "checked out" by helicopters.

It is surprising how often we get “checked out” by helicopters.

We had our first, and very pleasant, customs and immigration experience with US officials. The only thing we really screwed up was leaving a bag of trash on the deck. I’d heard that they were very twitchy about people disposing of trash before they arrived, so I put it out there so they could see we hadn’t done so. Apparently it has to be in a sealed container if it is on the deck. Oops! All of this descends from the current “Foreign Trash” rules. We will try to avoid them next time by having no vegetable or meat scraps or packaging from foreign ports when we arrive. This just means throwing away all the trash before you leave a foreign port and putting everything in reusable and cleanable plastic containers. Easy enough!

The Ponce art museum made for a fun excursion. It is a moderate walk from the main plaza, but you can stop at Pizza Heaven to recuperate on the way

The Ponce art museum made for a fun excursion. It is a moderate walk from the main plaza, but you can stop at Pizza Heaven to recuperate on the way.

A final note. We found the PYFC a relatively nice place to stay, but they made it very clear that the didn’t want us to be there. The office staff was cold and unwelcoming, and they constantly harped on us for not wearing our “Visitor’s” wrist-bands. They also deny access to almost all of the facilities (gym, pool, park, etc…) and the other accessible facilities (showers, laundry) were only semi-functional and not clean. For the amount of money it was a crummy experience.