BVI & Puerto Rico
Trippwire
Wed 31 Mar 2010 23:41
|
Well, rather a lot has happened since we last
updated...firstly we had an
interminable delay in getting our passports back from the US embassy in Barbados, which meant having to spend more than 2 weeks in the BVI; tough life I hear many of you say....but Jennifer and I have already been to the BVI, and we are really keen to get on and spend as much time as we can in Cuba. In addition to the above, the embassy had promised to turn our passports around and have them back to us within 5 days, and so we had planned a 5 day stop, and given that we were expecting our passports back each day, we did not want to venture too far from Tortola. So, we mainly hung out at the Bitter End Yacht Club - this is a 5 star resort that let the visiting yachts people use their facilities...so ok, we admit, it was not that tough! It also gave us a chance to catch up with Aisling, a friend from London, who is currently living out in the BVI. Thank you so so much for everything again Ais. It was great to catch up with you. Hopefully we'll see you again soon.   Another of the highlights was meeting some friends from Ohio that we briefly met in Anguilla. When in Anguilla, we were offloading ourselves and our rubbish from the dinghy, and this very friendly chap got chatting, and insisted on helping us with our rubbish. Anyway, we got chatting, and it turns out that they were bringing a friends boat from St Lucia to St Thomas where they have a holiday house. After depositing our rubbish, he gave us his card and insisted that we give them a call when we got to St Thomas, and that we must come over to stay. Well, rather than be our usual reserved British selves, we decided to get in contact. Whilst we could not travel to the USVI without our passports, it turns out that they were coming up to a bay in the BVI. So, we met up for a very good dinner with them and their friends. It was our plan to head over to seem them in the USVI, but because of the long delay in receiving our passports, we reluctantly had to head over to Puerto Rico - we needed to be in Havana in 2 and a bit weeks time, and we had 1000 miles to cover! The trip to Puerto Rico was uneventful, and after trying several times to get our anchor to hold in the harbour at San Juan, we gave up and anchored up at their very expensive marina. Here we had our first experience with the US immigration. We arrived late, and after some food headed off to bed without having left the marina complex. Apparently we should have checked in the minute we arrived...on getting up the next morning we called through and found that we had some serious explaining to do...and so we got boarded by lots of serious looking men with guns.....and given a good ticking off! San Juan was a haven for cruise ships, and as such very touristy and filled with tourist tat. So, after a day of whistle stop tour, we set off on our way for the Dominican Republic. This proved to be a bit of a turning point in the trip.      Up until now, we had been getting very consistent easterly
trade winds. This all changed very suddenly and we came back to earth with rather a large bump. Around 70 miles beyond San Juan, we were crossing the channel that separates Puerto Rico from the Dominican Republic (called the Mona Passage), and at around midnight, what was forecast to be a weak front came through. The wind picked up to 25 knots, gusting to 35, and kicked up a horrendous wind against tide sea. We were beating into it and dropping 15ft off the waves with an awful resulting bang and shudder from the boat. It was not helped by having no moon, and with it being pitch black, it was impossible to steer down them.....this was without doubt the worst sea that I had ever encountered, and for only the second time in the last 20 years I was sea sick! We did everything that we could to slow the boat down, but even at 4 knots of boat speed we still felt that we were on the worlds most un-entertaining roller coaster ride! The final straw came when Jen, who was sitting down and holding on, got thrown vertically in the air and would have been ejected over the side if it was not for the harness that she was wearing that was tethering her to the boat. All in all, not fun, particularly given that we had a further 200 miles to go. So, for the first time in my life, we decided to turn around and seek shelter in the lee of Puerto Rico. Once we turned around, I was expecting to surf down the waves...not a bit of it - they were so vertical sided that we were still falling off the waves, only just not quite so violently! As dawn was breaking, we arrived at Mayaguez in Puerto Rico, thankfully with no damage from our brief trip and after a quick kip and a look at the weather, we decided to go for the conservative option and wait anchored up in the bay for a couple of very wet days! This turned out to be the first of many weather delays that we have had coming along what is now the Atlantic (rather than Caribbean) coastline. According to the Bahamian weather router, this has been the worst winter since the 70's, with low pressure after low pressure coming over the area. |