17:42.59N  072:27.18W

Passage to Jamaica

April 14^th 2007

Hi Folks,

Thought I would put a few words down as we are on route from Puerto Rico to Jamaica. We are just sailing along the coast of Haiti, not a recommended stop over. This leg from the Dominican Republic to Jamaica will take us 4 days it’s about 400    miles and we should get in for Monday.

Not a lot to do so I thought I could continue with my travel journal, which I know you, look forward to Ha! Ha! Well it gives me something to do.

Leaving Puerto Rico we made 3 stops along the south coast of the island. The first a day sail from Fajardo to the small town of Patillas. Anchored in the bay, very quiet and pretty.

 The next day we set off again for the city of Ponce another 40 miles along the coast. Ponce is the second largest city on Puerto Rico, a large commercial port, very busy lots of industry and noisy, not an anchorage you wish to spend a lot of time at. We had an overnight stop on anchor before continuing to Bahia de Bogueron about 50 miles along the coast.

This is a large bay and we planed to anchor off the beach which looked very pretty. Golden sands edged with palm trees and greenery and the sea kept smooth by a surrounding reef. The bay is quite shallow all over and Graham pointed out on the chart a couple of unmarked submerged rocks to be avoided.

Well you can guess – we dropped our anchor and backed to set it, when we stopped. We had snagged the rudder on one of the two rocks in the whole bay. Luck or what! Fortunately no damage was done except the rudder lost some of its bright new paint.

Later we decide to go ashore and stretch our legs. Easter Monday and the beach was crowded with locals. Families carrying BBQ, large ice boxes with their food and drinks, folding chairs which were set up under the shelter of the trees on the beach and of course music from large ghetto blasters. As the sun went down a Rock concert started up and we were subjected to an evening of loud Spanish and English pop music through to midnight.