WildChild is currently at anchor awaiting our weather window to make the crossing of the much dreaded and feared Mona passage (the waters between DR and PR). I ( Fearful Head Chicken-in-Charge Captain Lexi ) am a big bundle of fear and nervous energy today. There are 2 things worrying me a lot…
1/ the Mona passage crossing we are probably going to start tomorrow (Sunday Nov 3rd 2019)
2/ Checking into Puerto Rico… because although WildChild is a Canadian registered Vessel with American decals and cruising permits… my Crew is German. They might not let her in.
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Mona Passage
I remember making the Gulf of Maine crossing in the North Atlantic last year and that was pretty sporty dangerous, I feel like this Mona passage crossing is also at around the same level. The thing about sailing is you always hear the horror stories… nobody tells the easy passage stories. So although bad nasty things can and do happen to us small vulnerable cruising boats out here… most of our passages go off rather well. But how do you know if this one will become the horror story or not…?
It is rather easy for novice sailors to look simply at their chart plotters and say… meh… no worries… our boat drafts 6 feet and the shallowest we will see is 300 feet… plenty deep enough for our keel… we will be fine… no danger…
*****WRONG*****
You have to understand what the Ocean is doing. Think about this for a moment… on each side of the mountain peak the water is like over 20,000 feet deep. The Moon causes tidal forces to act upon the water and pull it up and down. When the entire water content of the Atlantic Ocean is being pulled by the tidal forces it cause huge mega massive unimaginable amounts of water to want to be forced into the side of the underwater mountain which then directs this water UP… towards the surface to get over the mountain. That is a lot of water trying to move back and forth across the top of that mountain. Even if the mountain peak is still 300-1000 feet below the surface of the water there is still a lot of water crossing the peak.
This is what makes the Mona passage so potentially dangerous. If you remember some of my earlier lessons about what happens when the wind pushes the water surface waves AGAINST the underwater currents… you remember that this can cause the waves to become really big and rather steep (close together or short dominant wave period).
Well right now there are big Atlantic waves pushing their way thru the Mona passage from the nasty storms a 1000 miles north of us. Also note that when you get a wave forecast this is only a computer model of what the wind alone will do to the water surface, waves are not this simple. You have to remember to also look at the residual swell models and add these 2 heights together, as sometimes a wave will ADD to a swell… and sometimes a wave will SUBTRACT from a swell.
Tomorrow these forecast waves are expected to come down to below 2 meters, which WildChild can handle and has handled many many times. I do not worry about 6 foot waves. BUT… when we are about to break out from shore and cross the mountain top… which way will the underwater currents be going? IF the current at that time is going against these surface waves…. the odds are good we will see much more nasty waves than a simple 2 meters.
The other thing to note is that the tidal currents are constantly changing back and forth. Given that the Mona passage is a 60 mile crossing and at best we will move a steady 5 knots… we need 12 hours to cross it. The tide will see a full high and low cycle during our crossing. It will switch and go both ways. When it is with the waves we should be ok… when it goes against the waves… well… we will not be ok.
So all the best advice for sailors is two fold… only cross the Mona passage in the calmest of Ocean conditions to reduce the risk of getting pummeled by big nasty steep waves… AND …. Do not just go in a straight line across the peak of the mountain top. Try to get to deeper water as fast as you can. This is why Van Zant recommends crossing at night (calmer winds and just motor) and he says to follow the DR shoreline south until you reach deeper water then cut east.
So although the wave forecasts say we are going to be ok to cross Tomorrow (Sunday Nov 3rd) evening until Tuesday evening these forecasts DO NOT take the tidal forces into account so they cannot blindly be relied upon.
You can see on the right the much longer route I would rather take to reduce my exposure to the tidal currents at the mountain peak in the Mona Passage but this does add almost a hundred miles to the crossing. The advantage is this keeps us running down wind and with the waves across the peak of the underwater mountain top for the minimal amount of time and gets us to deeper water as fast as possible.
Is this safer…? or unnecessary..?
Interesting side story… 4 months ago when we were in Ocean World Marina in Puerto Plata we made friends with a girl working on a big luxury yacht as crew. She told us they had just made the Mona crossing passage a few days earlier in calm winds and their 80 foot yacht took a pretty nasty beating. She said it was quite rough on a calm night when they had just crossed.
Sooo… what is the “right” decision…? What is the best and safest thing to do…? When should we cross….? How should we cross…? How is the forecast I have now going to be wrong…? Where will the forecast error be…? Will it really be this bad…? Am I worrying for nothing…? Does anybody else want to take this Captain stress away from me please… anyone…? Elena… want to make these decisions… she always says no way.
If we do decide to start this jump tomorrow afternoon our window will only last until around Tuesday afternoon then we had better get off the open water as the over 20 knots of stronger sporty winds will come and make life miserable again.
I do confess… right now… I am very unsure of myself and very stressed out trying to make this decision.
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Puerto Rico and stupid American Rules of Entry
So you know… as wild children we do spend most of our adventure time wandering around without much of a plan. Maybe we should go here or there. Very loosely we decided hey… when we leave the DR lets go see the rest of the Caribbean. OK so we are doing it. We turned east and are currently headed that way. Next stop in this adventure is the next island over, Puerto Rico. OK well so no problem right… after all its basically America and Canada is friends with America. I have crossed over to America many times in the great lake before without any issue.
WildChild still has an American coastal cruising permit number (not sure if it is still current or expired to be honest) and she has her stupid American aircraft registration decal (yes I know WildChild is a boat not a plane but American requires Canadian boats to register into their aircraft registry system) We had no problems last time we checked into the USA in Maine, but at that time my crew was an evil Canadian monkey… now I have a lovely German princess on board as crew.
Although I am quite certain my American friends will welcome WildChild and Captain Lexi into Puerto Rico… I have recently become quite concerned about what they may say about my crew entering the country.
I was reading up on things about entering Puerto Rico and it has mostly just stressed me the fuck out… I am ready to cry trying to figure out the completely insane American entry rules.
So if you go on your Navionics app and you go to an active Captain mark you can inquire what other sailors have to say about a spot. At the bottom you will see a review tab. I was trying to figure out where we can go to check into PR and found some info on the west end for a port called Mayaguez that is an official port of entry. I clicked on the active captain mark and went to the reviews… Some of the reviews were pretty benign and Americans spoke well about being welcomed into PR. Some reviews were of goods and services available onshore…. the next one stopped me in my tracks… uh oh…
Well… my princess wonderful crew Elena has a Vaild ESTA….! This is supposed to be the American visa Waver program. It is supposed to mean that she does not need a visa for up to 90 days in the USA. Or at least that is what the government website says. It worked when she flew into Florida to get a connecting flight to come to WildChild in the Bahamas 8 months ago.
The more I read about the American rules of entry the more I want to cry.
See America invented this idea of VISA waiver countries a long time ago. Basically they felt that if their country was friends with other countries (like Europe and Australia) they (American travelers) should not have to be bothered with getting VISA’s before they can visit other countries. And this still does hold true, Americans can visit their VISA waiver countries without a VISA… BUT… America seems to no longer agree to follow their own rules about this. Citizens of those other VISA waiver countries now need a VISA to come and visit the USA. YEP… typical American stupidity.
You just have to look at their president to know their government is not functioning well… or with any form of sanity, logic, reason, or intelligence. As their friendly neighbours to the north we are kind of used to American insanity, they are always breaking their trade agreements with us.
Also last year sailing down the US coastline I discovered that when dealing with the USA… they are way too much of a police state with way too many law enforcement people employed to enforce way too many rules… but the thing is… even they seldom understand their own rules. Sometimes I would check into an office and get two different rules to follow from two different officers working in the same office. Same thing at the land border crossings… it all depends on the personality of the officer you talk to. Most are nice some are dicks.
So there is supposed to be an APP called CBP ROAM app (I had an old version I have used before) and when I went to try and download it now, it just will not download. It is a terrible APP poorly designed and works poorly but it supposed to be the American solution to checking in. We cannot get it to download.
As to whether or not Elena needs a VISA to enter… we are not sure. She is from a VISA waiver country (Germany) that the USA has a VISA waiver agreement with… So she should not need a visa if she stays less than 90 days. America has gone all crazy about security so she did have to get (and has a valid) ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) which means they checked her out with their security people and they do not believe she is a terrorist. OKAY GREAT…
Trying to figure out their VISA programs will make you want to cry too… some info says she needs a B1 Visa… no no no that’s just for working in the US… she needs a B2 VISA she has to apply for from Germany… no no no.. She just needs an I95 form… no no no she needs an I93 form… No no no she does not need a VISA… yes yes yes she does need a VISA… no no no the ESTA is all she needs… …. …. …. ….. …..
OH LORD GRANT ME PATIENCE…
Then I found this official government website that says this is the list of forms that I need to have for the vessel to enter the country…
What The Fuck does any of this mean….?
So basically… We have no idea how Puerto Rico will respond to Elena’s arrival. I figure Canadian Captain Lexi and Canadian WildChild should be welcomed.
I figure… fuck it… we are going anyway.
90% of the time American officers are cool and easy to deal with… lets hope for one of them.
Worst case scenario… they arrest Elena and seize the boat… Eeek…
Probably the worst that will happen is that they will tell her she cannot go to shore and WildChild stays under Quarintine… which is fine by us. Then we declare under international maritime law the need for safe harbour and we wait for a weather window to just jump over to the BVI’s.
Jumping from here now (Samana DR) all the way to the BVI’s is too far for us to do in one jump. So at the very least we would need to break up the jump with a rest stop on the western shore of the PR… which we will get when we try to check in anyway.
Or maybe I should just check myself and the boat in and not mention my crew at all.
Or maybe we should just fly the American flag and not check in at all… just coastal hop our way along until we can jump over to the BVI’s. If some coast guard does find us just say… hey we are glad you found us… we just arrived… can you please tell us where we are supposed to go to check in… and then go try to check in…
I don’t know… I am a sailor… I don’t want to deal with stupid government rules… and clearly I have no patience for them. Clearly America takes the cake when it comes to stupid rules…
…the DR has lots of stupid rules… seldom enforced and as long as they get money out of you they do not care too much about their rules… I am starting to miss the DR rules already…
I fear getting lost in the upcoming stupid American rules…
but hey… you never know… maybe this will all work out fine…?
maybe I am worrying all for nothing… ?
Maybe…
Cheers Sailors
Captain Lexi…
…the big bundle of stress today…