The trip from
Samana to Ile de Mona (USA) was uneventful, thank goodness, just long. We left Samana at 5:00 p.m. and arrived in
Ile de Mona at about 3:30 p.m. the next day.
Amazing what you can find out as a cruiser – I never knew Ile de Mona
existed and what I treasure I would have missed if we weren’t cruising. It is a huge island in the middle between
Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. It
is a Puerto Rican National Park. It has
4 mooring balls and you just pull up and hook up to one. Then you can swim on your own private beach
and snorkel – gorgeous! We made it to
shore and walked around a bit where they have some ‘primitive’ camping spots
set up for people to come in a boat and camp.
There are lots of hiking trails and the island is big enough to boast an
air strip. There are park rangers, with
houses of their own, on the island. It
is also a research island and there are more houses that house the research
personnel. If you swim to shore and
leave your snorkeling gear too close to the water, you may come back and find
your mask and snorkel missing, gone. L I have to shop in Puerto
Rico for a new set.
We stayed a
couple of hours, would liked to have stayed longer, but Puerto Rico is calling
us. We have friends flying into Puerto
Rico this next week to spend a week with us on the boat, so we have to keep
moving. We’re very excited to see Tim
and Blenda, even though I talk to Blenda almost daily via e-mail, messages or
FaceTime, it isn’t like spending some real face time together.
After we left
Ile de Mona, I was beat and went below to take a nap. I was sleeping SO good when Daniel urgently
comes and gets me – “you have to see this – these dolphins are going crazy out
here.” I’m like, “I’ve seen dolphins, I
need a nap”…but he’s pretty excited so I jump up and go topside and am
definitely NOT disappointed. I have
never seen so many dolphins! It was
better than MarineLand. They were doing
flips and twists, jumps way into the air and twirling around – they gave us a
show we will never forget. It totally
made our trip from Ile de Mona to Puerto Rico!
The rest of
the night to Puerto Rico was a long one – the seas were rough and the winds
were about 15-20 knots. Then we SAW
Puerto Rico. Did you know there are
mountains in Puerto Rico? I didn’t have
a clue – what a wonderful surprise. Our
only visit has been to San Juan with nice flat streets, these mountains are
just a really nice surprise. Our final
surprise, while I was down below cooking breakfast, another humpback whale came
by to say “hello”. Daniel said he was
very close to our boat but the time I got topside, he was gone. 
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