Colombia

Colombia
(a non-planned stop)

The start of our 5 day 5 night journey from Aruba to Panama was great. We all lounged around in the cockpit, ate 3 course dinners. Nice winds low seas. Mystique had the wind and the current behind her, pushing us 6 to 7 knots. Much like our last passages to Bonaire and Aruba. The second night the seas picked up a little and the winds were about 10 to 15 knots. Nothing to worry about, but still started to get a little rough inside the cabin. By the next morning the winds picked up to 30 to 35 knots and the seas were 10 to 15 feet waves. Everything inside the cabin started to roll back and forth. Things that stayed in place before began to fly around the cabin. Even the fruit was rolling from one side of the boat to the other. Sailor had no safe place to go to be safe. I went down below to try to secure things a bit and safe Sailor. I was tossed from side to side like a rag doll. I was smashed agents the master berths door and it split down the middle. I have the bruises to show for that one!

Carl and Dick were at the helm, and taking over all the watches, they couldn’t move anything the way the sails were set was the way they would have to stay. We were reaching 13 knots of speed without anyway to slow us down. A captain really don’t want to be moving at that speed under these conditions. After hours of this rough weather our autopilot would no longer take the strain and quit. Carl & Dick had to steer the boat by hand the rest of the way. Carl besides to go inland. We were approaching Colombia. Carl viewed the charts and found the closest city was Saint Marta. It took us about 10 hours to get into Santa Marta. The conditions remained the same.
As we approached the mainland it was starting to get dark. Captain Carl called over the VHF “is there anyone in Santa Marta that speaks English?” Optimistic a sailboat in the anchorage answered him back, then guided us safely into the anchorage right next to their boat. The anchorage was well sheltered from the wind and the waves. It was so peaceful that we all prayed to thank God we were safe and then fell deeply asleep.

The next morning we could see the shore. Large skyscrapers lined the shore line. A white sandy beach lay ahead. The whole beach was filled with people on Holiday. There was a inflatable Christmas tree on the beach music was playing, people swimming and paddling little boats all around. They all were so happy. What a place to end up, without any idea where we were going! We couldn’t have planned it better.

This really wasn’t an anchorage, Optimistic and Mystique were the only sailboats in the bay. The people all waved at us and didn’t seam to mind that we were there. We visited Optimistic and found out that they too had to come into Santa Marta to get out of the weather. They arrived at 2:00am not knowing where to go. They had 50 knots of wind as they came into the shelter of this bay. Both boats decided to leave together to go to Cartagena Colombia. It was a overnight crossing. We still had strong winds and high seas, but not nothing like we had before. Dick & Carl fixed the steering, so autopilot worked again. All is well!

Cartagena:

Cartagena is known as the last stop when heading to the San Blas Islands of Panama. They cater to the cruisers and have Marinas and dinghy docks. This mainland also has skyscrapers all along the shoreline with mountains in the background, there was even snow on the top of the highest peak. We went ashore and ate the local cuisine. It was very good and not to expensive. We took a taxi into the Old Town. There was lots of shopping. Terri & I had a blast shopping in all the different shops. There was a beautiful flower district with lots of Christmas shoppers. We really enjoyed the firm ground wile we were there.

The next day we headed out for the San Blas Islands. Seas were low and wind were 15 to 22 knots. Autopilot still working well. I made sure to put everything in the cabin away safely. Nothing hit the floor, no more bruises. Kind of a rough sail but nothing like before. We reached San Blas in 30 hours. Crew is fine just tired.