28 October 2008, At Sea.

Very early this morning we made land fall under the coast of Puerto Rico and by 8 am. we were passing through the Mona Passage between Puerto Rico, to the East, and the Island of Hispaniola to the West. Right in the middle of this passage is the island/islet of Mona which gives its name of the passage. It is basically a round rock that rises about a 100 to 150 feet above the water, is almost flat and quite rounded if seen from above.

For most sailors the Mona Passage is a well known name. Ships that sail to and from the Panama Canal, while coming and going from Europe will use this passage. I remember it well. When I was a cadet we sailed through every 30 days on the Liner service between the West coast of North America and Western Europe. As we always left the Panama Canal during sunset, we passed through the Mona Passage somewhere around lunch time a day later. So during my apprentice year I was able to observe Mona from all corners of the circle, so to speak. With the cruise ships you seldom use this passage, as all our cruises are set up in such a way, that there is never a call for a route from Panama to Europe or Vice Versa.

Thus it was for the first time in 28 years that I had a closer look again at Mona. It still looked the same, it is a nature reserve, so little chance of High Rises or other developments. We kept Mona to the left and Puerto Rico to the right and proceeded into the North Atlantic Ocean. From here we loosely followed the coast of Hispaniola. This is the big island that contains Haiti, to the West and the Dominican Republic to the East. For most of the afternoon we could see the mountain ranges of the Dominican Republic on our portside. Unfortunately, as the sun sets in the west, it did so behind these mountains ranges and the view for details was not that good.

The Bahamian chain of islands stretches all the way from Fort Lauderdale down to almost the coast of Hispaniola and for the remainder of the day we sailed south of this vast area. Most islands are very low and can hardly been seen, so it will not be until tomorrow morning when we reach Grand Turk, that the first significant built up island will appear on the horizon.

There was still not much of a current with us although normally there is about a knot. Even here in the North Atlantic there was very little wind today, so no surface current was generated. We are sailing between two Weather systems and the question is now going to be for tomorrow, how fast is the weather system to the North of us going to catch up. If it continues to move slowly as the weather prophets on Grand Turk are predicting, we will be able to make our call before the frontal system approaches and before we get hit by the accompanying winds.

The dock at Grand Turk is an investment of Carnival Corporation who built it two years ago. It really opened up the island to tourism and most ships of the companies under the Carnival umbrella call at the island now. The pier sticks out over a length of 1200 feet from the island and the bottom is dredged on both sides of the pier to let the cruise ships dock. There is also a cargo pier but that one is a lot smaller and has less depth of water around it.

Just past the end of the pier, the water depth suddenly goes from 30 feet to close to 400 feet as the island is basically a mountain top that sticks out from the water.

I will start to approach the dock around 0700 hrs. in the morning and hope to be docked by 07.30 hrs. We only have a short stay, until 1400 hrs. as it is a tight run to Half Moon Cay, where we call the day after tomorrow.