“It sucks sailors in and spits them out”
The simple fact that it has a name should have been a red flag. Even so, we were clueless about “the Mona Passage,” the little body of water between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, when we made our approach to exit the Caribbean Sea.
So far, we had four miserable days crossing the Caribbean Sea northwards. Keeping our course at a 60 degree angle to the wind to compensate for the current pushing us west made for a very uncomfortable sail.
For the non-sailors out there, 60 degrees to the wind means sailing almost straight into the wind, which makes the boat heel. Add to that a strong chop coming right on our starboard side, and...let's just say our stomachs had a hard time adjusting.
All the zig-zagging you saw on our track the last few days? That was us dodging squalls while trying to make the motion of the boat as comfortable as possible for our sensitive inner ears.
So when we reached Puerto Rico after four days of feeding the fishies and could finally put Polar Seal on a beam reach (a 90 degree angle to the wind), the motion of the boat changed completely, the seasickness vanished and the atmosphere onboard got a little cheerier.
A nice bonus was that we caught an American 4G signal from Puerto Rico and for a few hours, the seas were flat, the wind was good and the internet flowed through our devices.
That should have made for a perfect day. And it was, until we used that 4G signal to Google “the Mona Passage” and came across the saying “it sucks sailors in and spits them out.” Hmmm…okay?
In the middle of the Mona Passage, the wind stopped and we had to motor. Then came the rain and some massive swells straight in front of us with a big black wall of clouds (and more) looming on the horizon.
We motored in the rain between the Northern part of Puerto Rico and a tiny island before we inevitably ended up in that big black wall, and things took a turn.
At first, the swell turned into some massive chop. Picture four to five meter waves coming straight on our bow, but also from some really weird directions.
Out of nowhere, the wind picked up to 25-30 knots straight in front of us, prompting us to reef the sails we had just taken out as fast as we could.
We were heeling like crazy, climbing, surfing and smashing in the waves when out of the blue, the wind died off.
We took the sails out, tried motorsailing for a bit and then, the same things happened. Twenty-five to 30 knots straight on our bow for 10 minutes before the wind shifted completely behind us at less than 10 knots.
Our sails started to flog, our main sail couldn’t decide if it wanted to go port or starboard, and with the massive waves still coming on our starboard side, Ryan and I had a hard time figuring out what to do.
We eventually furled the headsail, centered the mainsail, and started a very uncomfortable ride west on the engine.
With no sails out to stabilize Polar Seal in the giant chop, Polar Seal turned into a rolling inferno for about two hours.
In those two hours, we questioned:
- Are we really monohull people?
- Why are we doing this to ourselves?
- Whose idea was this to go on an upwind passage for multiple thousands of nautical miles?
- Do we really want to go back to Bonaire next year if we have to make this passage again?
- If these are “ideal” conditions for the passage, how does this passage look in worse weather?
Fortunately after a few hours, the winds miraculously settled on our beam at 15 to 20 knots, and we could continue on our course north to Bermuda with the wind at 90 degree angle.
We expected the sea to continue behaving like crazy for another 12-24 hours, but with our sails out, the boat was finally stable again.
It is now 5AM as I am writing this, and we are still taking some chop on our beam, making Polar Seal slam and smash in the waves (not ideal).
The motion of the boat is pretty tiring, and the slamming every ten minutes or so kept us awake all night, but we expect the sea state to calm down later today, hopefully!
*While this isn't the highest quality photo we've ever published, our tale of navigating the Mona Passage should help explain why. We're hoping for calmer seas moving forward!