On the move

We're back on the move, after sitting for almost two weeks, we hope we remember how to make the boat move! In some ways, when we don't move for a while, we all get the jitters and it feels like we're starting over!

Random graffiti in San Juan

We got Maggie's passport this morning and we're continuing on around the bottom of Puerto Rico, making a pit stop today at an island called "Caja de Meurtos" or Coffin Island. It is supposed to be really beautiful, despite the name and we're hoping for some clean water for swimming. It is also reported to have the best snorkeling in Puerto Rico, so we hope to be able to give a report.

The bay we've been staying in at Salinas seems to be a dead-end, the water is cloudy with no water flowing through it and the bottom of Mehari is covered in barnacles in only two weeks!! So Levi and I will be busy this afternoon scrubbing the hulls once we parked in clean water. It will make a huge difference on our upcoming crossing to the Bahamas, and because our boat is so loaded down with food and people and books, we need all the help we can get. 

We are hoping to leave the corner of Puerto Rico on Sunday, which looks like a good weather window to make the 'Mona Passage' The Mona Passage is rumored to be one of the hardest passages in the Caribbean if not the Western Hemisphere. This is because it is where the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea meet in a very narrow passage. Also, the second deepest section of ocean in the world (second to Mariana Trench in the mid-Atlantic) rises from the ocean floor to only 20 meters in the space of less than a mile! So, if there is strong breezes from the Atlantic, it 'pushes' huge amounts of water up this ramp and creates a swirling mess of waves and currents. We have chose to wait for a very calm day, which we hear will only create 5-6 foot waves instead of 15-20. Fine by us. The passage is only about 80 miles across, but for our boat having to motor in calm weather, means it should be a passage of 18-20 hours. Then we will be through the worst of it and it is still another 2 days up into the first island of the Bahamas. It will hopefully be a smooth 3 days total and from other cruisers we've talked to, and the pictures we've seen, it looks absolutely amazing! We can't wait.

Also, it's been too long in shallow waters for us, and we have caught NO fish in the past month. So we are all rigged up and very hopeful to snag a Mahi or two on the passage. We bought a new bottle of spicy Teriyaki hoping it would change our luck. We are ashamed to report it is as yet, unopened :( 

Thanks for your prayers and support and we'll try and drop another note from the town of Boqueron, Puerto Rico before we leave.

See you!