Passage to Puerto Rico from Dominican Republic

On Tuesday, May 20th, we began our passage from Ocean World Marina, Dominican Republic, to Mayaguez, Puerto Rico.

We started out in good weather at 7:00am, but as the day wore on, the wind picked up (25 - 30 knots) and so did the waves (6' - 8'+). We had intended to go directly to Mayaguez (214 miles), but it was just too uncomfortable for us to make the 36 hour overnight run. So we picked out a cove on the chart called Puerto del Valle, on the northern coast of the Samana Peninsula, and dropped the hook there just as the sun went down. Still, that was a run of about 91 miles. When the sun came up on Wednesday morning, we found ourselves in a lovely cove, with a small fishing village surrounded by steep mountains. It was beautiful, and so was the weather.

Western coast of Dominican Republic































When the sun came up on Wednesday morning May 21st, we found ourselves in a lovely cove, with a small fishing village surrounded by steep mountains. It was beautiful, and so was the weather.

These are various shots taken early morning in the cove at Puerto del Valle















No kidding - this is a real place, with real fishermen















Yes, those are coconut palms lining the beach - note the absence of a highrise resort hotel















The water drops to a depth of 30' just a few yards from the edge of those trees. An ideal anchorage for boats like ours.

































From this lovely cove, we headed for Punta Cana, on the extreme Eastern end of DR, thinking that we would lay up there overnight if the weather turned bad again. But as we approached Punta Cana and the weather and waves were still mild, we decided to go ahead with an overnight passage to Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. We had a very easy run across the Mona Passage, arriving around 4:30am Thursday morning in Mayaguez, where we dropped anchor in the bay.







During the overnight passage, we did have periods of light rain, but no high winds or squall conditions. Once the rain passed, the moon came smiling down, almost full, so visibility was excellent. Once anchored in Mayaguez, we had breakfast and slept a few hours. The bay there is polluted with much industrial runoff, so we decided to move about 15 miles south on down the coast to Bahia de Boqueron, arriving early afternoon. We retired for the night around 7:30pm, and slept through til 5:30 this morning (Friday, May 23).

Bahia de Boqueron is really picturesque. It is a relatively large bay near the Southwestern tip of Puerto Rico. It has a great beach, a small and active township, a couple of marinas, and a great waterside restaurant named Galloway's - More on that later.