Wild, wild Mona

We left Boqueron at 10:15, a lovely day (we saw three whales!) and a mild breeze from the Northwest, so although our sails were up we were not sailing. That was our main concern: we are always worried about over taxing our motor. But three hours later, as we left Puerto Rico behind, the wind shifted to the North and it slowly started building. For a couple of hours we sailed happily with 13 to 15 knots and 6 foot waves also from the North, but then both winds and waves started to build. We reefed the main and the jib, luckily before it became wild, because we could do it calmly. After that the waves were over 8 feet and the wind was over 22 gusting to 28. At about 4pm we decided we could not face an overnight to Samana (the autopilot stopped working, the bracket could not stand the effort) so we used our much maligned Sat phone and called Cap Cana to let them know we were coming in at 11pm). They said they would send a pilot out to meet us and gave me his cell phone. (I love this marina!)
We turned on the engine and headed to Cap Cana, which gave us a better heading against wind and waves which by now were NE. At 11:45 we were safely tied to our own slip. This morning before 7, the "authorities" were knocking on our door.
Juan's been assessing the damage to the bracket, he is not sure yet what to do. But we are not leaving till Tuesday so we have time before our next two long passages - Puerto Plata (maybe stop in Samana) and then Turks and Caicos.
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