Mona Passage
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The Mona Passage is a strait that separates the islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. The Mona Passage connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean Sea, and is an important shipping route between the Atlantic and the Panama Canal.
The eighty mile stretch of sea between the two islands is one of the most difficult passages encountered in the Caribbean. It is fraught with tidal currents of strange twists and turns that are created by those two big islands on both sides of it, and by sand banks that extend out for many miles from both coasts.
Most cruising boaters entering the Caribbean from the north do so via a stop at Samana in the northeastern part of the Dominican Republic, then continuing more than 150 miles across the Mona Passage to Puerto Rico without stopping. Under sail it means an even longer distance because of having to "tack" a zig-zag course into the easterly trade winds. Add this to the twisted currents and seas encountered while crossing and a haze in the air in this region which often blocks visibility until only a few miles from land, and you end up with a very dangerous sea crossing for almost any boater.
Mona Island (a dependency of United States of America) lies almost exactly in the middle of the Mona Passage and it would make an ideal resting place to split up the passage for vessels coming from Samaná if it were only farther to the north. But for boaters wishing to take advantage of the island to break up the crossing into two more manageable pieces, they need to depart from the south coast of Hispaniola rather than the north. Currents are also less treacherous to deal with along the southern route.
50 km northeast of Mona Island and much closer (21 km) to the Puerto Rican mainland is Desecheo Island.
At the stop of Saona Island on the southeast coast of the Dominican Republic, boaters can sit and wait for a lull in the trade winds when seas are down to start their eastward crossing. This is an advantage which is not possible when departing from Samaná. It is only about 40 miles from Saona to the protected anchorage inside the barrier coral reef on the west coast of Mona Island. And from there it is another 40 miles to the popular and spacious cruising anchorage at Boqueron in Puerto Rico.
