Monday 18th February 2013 Ponce Puerto Rico

I decided to leave Boca Chica on Wednesday 13^th so arranged with the marina manager, on Tuesday, to clear out in the morning, to leave the country the boat has to be searched with a sniffer dog as well as customs and leave immediately, and got my exit stamp from immigration; the formalities were finally completed by 10am and so lines were let go and off we went again. The NE winds I was hoping for did not materialise so tacking was again necessary, although the winds were a pleasant 10-20 knots from the East to South Eastgiving me an easy ride at 3-4 knots, the only life around being the odd sea bird and briefly a pod of large black dolphins. On Friday the wind picked up blowing 20-25kn with a fairly short swell of about 3m and a cross swell to top it off, we finally got past Cabo Rojo, meaning we had crossed the channel between the islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, early afternoon on Saturday 16^th After sunset the wind moderated to 10-15kn from the East, so an easy run should have resulted in arrival at Ponce on Sunday morning, however at about 3.15am on a clear night, there was a sudden jarring bump, first thought we had fallen off a steep wave, but checking the GPS we were off course and close to land, another bump, and could see cliffs around in the dark and breaking waves driving us closer, so started engine and tried to reverse off, more bumps and little progress, I moved to ahead and started turning the bow away from land, we managed to get about but made little progress away from the rocks; realising we were now aground and starting to get pounded into the rocks I put out a mayday and was answered by the US Coast guard immediately, who contacted SeaTow who said they would be out at first light (about 6.30am) the engine stopped after what felt like the propeller touching down and she started listing to starboard as the keel was hard aground, with waves lifting and pounding us down again, the forestay bracket came adrift and I managed to pull down and stow the jib and douse the main, after a while the forestay parted at the masthead and I secured the self furling along the starboard side, I also inflated the dingy as a way off if I needed it. SeaTow arrived in a rib and not being able to get close because of the breakers, swam a line over and tried to pull us off with no effect, so they sent for a bigger boat which would not arrive for a couple of hours, and they stood-by, the coast guard had deployed a helicopter, the seatow captain and the helicopter crew said they were worried for my safety aboard so I agreed to try for shore, a small pebble beach was now about 20yards away, so putting a few waterproof bags of essentials (ships documents, computers and clothes) into the dingy I rowed ashore not getting too wet.

 However having looked around the beach I could find no way up on to the cliff about 20 feet above, we were in a small cove carved out by the sea, after a while the seatow captain offered to try to float in a line to pull me out, and the helicopter said there was the option of a basket, I decided to try to row out, there were two lines of breaking waves one close to shore the other at the entrance to the cove, so after reloading and refloating the dingy I picked my time and rowed out fairly easily to board the rib. As the bigger boat was not due for aa while yet we headed for Ponce marina to await it, an officer from immigration turned up and went through the formalities, but kept all ships documents until Snow White could be seen and cleared-in. When the larger SeaTow boat arrived we went out to the cove , but the waves at the entrance were now much too big to allow a safe approach, after a number of phone calls to head office we returned to Ponce and a brief interview with the local marine police, then a taxi ride to a hotel to try to get some rest.