23 May 2013 Providencia, Colombia
We went into town. I went to the Internet café and checked our email while Glenys went shopping. It’s a bit frustrating not being able to get internet on the boat. It makes emailing twice as slow – I compose the email on board and then send it a couple of days later when I go into the internet café. I’ll pick up any replies from emails I sent a few days ago, etc, etc. The place is not very conducive to any leisurely browsing of web sites because there’s a constant stream of people popping in and out. I can’t wait to get somewhere where we can get an internet connection on-board because we’ve got lots of things to order to be delivered to the UK.
The weather looks like it will be unsettled over the next few days and then clear up early next week. We wandered over to Mr Bush to tell him that we want to leave early on the 27th. He’s going to process our zarpe today and then I’ve got to go in on Sunday morning to pick it up. We’re planning to go to San Andreas for a week and then go down to the Boca del Torro in Panama. We’ve heard that it’s expensive to clear in there, but it looks like a good place to spend a few weeks. It’s a small bay about 15 miles across with lots of small islands and places to anchor – looks interesting.
We did some more jobs in the afternoon and then went out for a meal with Tony and Angela from “Tana Vika” and Jim and Laura from “Nilaya”. The meal was okay, but with a huge fat content. I had a Patacone , which is a thin base made from plantains covered with a topping – like a kind of pizza. It was okay but could have been much better. At least I finally got to drink a real Colombian beer, which was also just okay.
24 May 2013 Providencia, Colombia
It was another job day. Glenys did some work on the bimini. It’s been leaking when it rains and we’re expecting a lot of rain when we get down to Panama. She put some tent sealant on all of the various seams a few days ago, but it was still leaking where the stitching is pulling across the middle where there’s a zip. We took the bimini off and Glenys sewed a long strip of Sunbrella on the top to cover the stitching. She then painted waterproofing on the whole bimini and spray-hood. Hopefully that will keep water out of our cockpit.
I finished off servicing the engine, changing the diesel filters and water pump impellor. I also cleaned the engine, checked all of the hose clips and generally gave it a good staring at. The timing belt seems a bit loose, but I can’t tension it by myself because I don’t have the correct gear. I dug out the old service logs that Sergio, the previous owner had kept and found out that the timing belt was last replaced in 2005. Volvo recommends that it should be replaced every 2000 hours or three years, so it’s well over due to be done. It’s another job to get done in Shelter Bay – we’re getting quite a list now.
In the late afternoon, I had a marathon, three hour session on the guitar. My technique is getting better, but I can’t get through a single song without making several mistakes – it’s so frustrating. All I can do is practise, practise, practise…
25 May 2013 Providencia, Colombia
We went into town to do some shopping and get access to the Internet - the weather forecast shows unsettled rainy weather for the next week, but there's nothing nasty around, so we'll definitely go down to San Andres the day after tomorrow. In the afternoon, we pottered around tidying up after two weeks at anchor.
We had a visit by the Colombian Coast Guard who showed up in a big RIB. They‘d come from the Coast Guard cutter that we’ve seen patrolling the area. Four of them came aboard in their big black boots and while the officer inspected our papers, two of them wandered around the deck inspecting our deck equipment – well, more curious than inspecting. They were all very friendly and the officer said that if we had any engine or other problems that we should call him and he could send someone over to help. They left us with some Colombian navy promotional gifts – a couple of small notepads, some cardboard sun visors and two fridge magnets!
26 May 2013 Providencia, Colombia
Another Sunday in Providencia – it’s time to move on. I went into town to pick up our zarpe from Mr Bush - he rang Mr Rene, the clearance agent in San Andres to tell him that we'd be arriving tomorrow afternoon – obviously an old boy’s network.
We went for a walk to Almond Bay - it was only a mile or so, but we were very hot and sweaty by the time we arrived. It's getting more humid now that we're approaching the rainy season. We had lunch at Delmar's Sunset Bar, which was surprisingly good considering the ram shackled hut that it was prepared in. I had barbecued fish and Glenys had shrimp - both served with the ubiquitous patacones and deep fried plantains, turning a healthy meal into one loaded with a week's worth of saturated fats.
We walked back towards town and called in at the baseball stadium where a game was in progress. There were quite a few locals there, cheering on their home team. I really enjoyed myself. We were sat twenty metres behind the base plate and the crowd was constantly shouting abuse and encouragement at the referees and the players. There were a few arguments on the base plate when a referee made a borderline decision. Great fun – much better than the New York Yankees match that we saw last year.
27 May 2013 Providencia to San Andres, Colombia
The alarm went off a half past three, not that it mattered too much because I’m convinced that I didn’t sleep at all during the night. We jumped out of bed and left before four o’clock. There was a lovely full moon, so we had enough light to pull up the anchor and navigate out of the anchorage. We motored until we got to the outer sea buoy and then sailed off towards San Andres on a reach. The winds were flaky for the first hour because we were in the shadow of the island, but it soon settled down to a pleasant 15 knot wind.
Unfortunately, the seas were large and confused and, after being at anchor for a couple of weeks, we started to feel a little queasy, but a couple of hours staring at the horizon soon sorted us out.
We had to sail south along the fringing reef of San Andres for five miles, going past the anchorage and then turned around a breaking reef into the ship channel. It’s quite worrying going along the edge of the reef because there are quite a few wrecked ships perched high and dry on the reef. We gybed around the outer sea buoy and sailed into the harbour at around three o’clock past some small islands covered with tourists. The water colours were stunning reflecting the intermittent sun off the white sand sea bed.
The chart shows the San Andres town anchorage as being to the west of a small island called Cotton Cay. We weaved our way through a fleet of fishing boats, all anchored on bits of rope, encountering depths ranging from 10 metres down to 2.6 metres. The charts seemed to be very inaccurate. We then spotted a group of cruising boats to the north-east of the island, so we cautiously started to head towards them. As we passed a French flagged boat called “Le Croix de Sud”, they attracted our attention and told us that we wouldn't be able to get directly to the anchorage because is less than 1 metre. They explained that we had to go back to the shipping channel and follow an unmarked channel on the south east side of the cay.
Not trusting the charts and having poor sunlight, we had a couple of emergency stops when the depth plummeted, but eventually felt our way into the anchorage. There were four yachts in the anchorage and several big tourist boats – one’s a floating nightclub and another’s a pirate ship. There were also lots of mooring balls.
We motored around the place and found that the anchorage is quite tight with shallow water surrounding it. We anchored in a nice big gap in six metres of water and were then told off by a guy on the big night club boat because we were anchored in the main channel – what channel? We decided to move anyway and ended up dropping our anchor between “Arwen”, a Hallberg Rassy 40 and “Five Islands”, an Australian Catamaran. By the time that we’d settled, we were fairly well positioned behind them, but have a one metre shallow sand bank about two boat lengths behind us – I hope that we don’t drag.
Some idiot had left their VHF radio on transmit, so we were unable to hail Rene, the clearance agent on channel 16, so we went to say hello to our close neighbours to get local knowledge. At their suggestion we went to Nene’s Marina, but the clearance agent was not around and we were told by Nene to call Rene on channel 16. We gave up and went back to Alba for a nice cold beer.
28 May 2013 San Andres, Colombia
We managed to contact Rene on the VHF radio and arranged to meet him at ten o’clock. We waited until half past ten and he hadn’t turned up so we gave up and went for a walk telling Nene that we’d be back at eleven. We wandered around getting a feel for the place. It’s a very busy, chaotic place with thousands of motor bikes whizzing around. You need eyes in the back of your head when crossing a street as they seem to come from all directions.
Rene didn’t turn up at eleven o’clock, so we so we told Nene that we’d try to get hold of Rene later in the day. We went to Yacht Club which is just across from where we were anchored. They charge $12.50 per person per week to use their dinghy dock - we tried to get a reduced rate because we’ll only be here for five days but no chance. We caved in; it’s not a lot of money to get the security for docking our dinghy. While we were there, we got the lady to ring Rene and arranged to meet him at four o’clock at the Yacht Club.
We wandered around the town a little more. It’s a very confusing place. Streets seem to go all over the place and gently curve, so you start walking east and end up walking north – very disorienting. The place is a mixture of small local shops and larger glitzy tourist shops. San Andres is a very popular holiday destination for mainland Colombian tourists and they are everywhere.
Eventually, we retired to a small restaurant called “Miss Celia’s“, which is almost directly opposite the yacht club entrance. It was a pleasant place and very busy. The food was acceptable and the portions were huge.
After another short walk around the area to work off some of our enormous lunch, we retired back to the boat. Five minutes after we’d settled down, Roland from “Le Croix de Sud” came over and told me that Rene was waiting for me at Nene’s Marina. I jumped in the dinghy and zipped over to be told that Rene had gone to see the port captain and would be back in ten minutes. I was not a happy bunny and went for a walk. Twenty minutes later the guy turned up, apologising. It only took five minutes for him to fill in a form, and then he disappeared. It’ll cost us $50 for his services to clear in and out – what a rip off.
We chilled out on the boat for the remainder of the afternoon and then went to “Cetacea” for sun-downers with Tony & Gail (USA). All of the other cruisers from the anchorage were there - Roland & his wife from “Le Croix de Sud” (Swiss), John & Sue from “Five Islands” (Australia), Jentz & Danielle from “Arwen” (German). It was a very pleasant international evening. Most of them know each other from cruising down in Panama, so we gathered a lot of information about getting work done in Shelter Bay Marina. “Le Croix De Sud” told us a horror story about having their engine rebuilt in Panama – they were stuck there for a whole year!
29 May 2013 San Andres, Colombia
We had a walk around the town and got totally lost – the streets are a maze. We eventually found a large supermarket not too far from the yacht club and re-stocked our provisions.
We can only get a very intermittent internet signal on board, so I spent the afternoon in the yacht club bar using their wireless internet while Glenys went for a walk around town by herself. I had a very productive afternoon, ordering lots of things to be delivered to Glenys’s brother Gareth in the UK. I’ve still got a very long list of things to buy before we go through the Panama Canal in October, so I’ll need to have another session soon.
30 May 2013 San Andres, Colombia
We had a really good internet connection on board today, so we stayed in and ordered lots more things. I’m starting to feel guilty about the large number of deliveries that Gareth is going to receive. We’re ordering lots of small items like camera batteries, guitar strings, printer cartridges, pump seals, etc. Unfortunately, it looks like there’s going to be about twenty separate small deliveries over the next week.
31 May 2013 San Andres, Colombia
We hired a scooter, which was a laid back affair. After we agreed the price of 50,000 pesos ($25US) for the day, we were bundled into a golf cart and taken down a back street to a kind of garage, where we were shown a nice, newish scooter standing amongst wrecked cars. In our broken Spanish, we confirmed that we’ d have it back by five o’clock and after handing over a 50,000 peso note, we were handed the keys. No inspection of driving license, no filling in forms, no disclaimers to sign – just pay and go. I love it.
We drove around the island – it’s only seven miles long so it didn’t take us too long. It’s very built up in the north of the island and there are motorbikes everywhere. The south end of the island is much quieter and heavily geared towards the thousands of tourists who head there for the sandy beaches and tourist attractions.
One major attraction is called “Big Pond Lagoon”, which is (eerrrr..) a big pond up in hills that run down the centre of the island. We were adopted by a “guide” who walked with us down from the main road to the pond and showed us some small Crocodiles that live in this 400 metre long lagoon. He then insisted on showing us a big tree which was (errr…) an old tree. He’d refused to agree an up-front price for his services, saying that he’d let our conscience decide the price. So I was a little apprehensive when I gave him a 5,000 peso note ($2.50 US), but he accepted it graciously.
We stopped off at various beaches and bays, then stopped at the “Blow Hole”, which IMHO was the best “attraction” on the island. It’s a small tunnel in the shore-line rocks that ends in a 1 foot diameter vertical hole. When big waves hit the seaward end of the tunnel, air is violently pushed out of the hole. People stand next to the hole and it’s really funny to see their hair stand vertically on end when the air rushes out.
We stopped for lunch at a very nice restaurant called “Donde Francesca” at Sound Bay. The food was a little more expensive than normal but was very, very good. Their fish soup is delicious. By three o’clock, we’d exhausted the possibilities of the island and returned the scooter.
I’d arrange to meet Rene at the yacht club at half past four, but as expected, he didn't turn up until called by someone at the yacht club. When he finally arrived, he handed over our zarpe and then said that I had to wait for the immigration officer, who turned up fifteen minutes later. The immigration guy filled in a form, which Rene and I signed. Rene took his $50US and then told me that I’d have to wait while the Immigration officer went back to his office and stamped our passports. God, give me strength! Fortunately the immigration officer was good to his word and came back twenty minutes later – it took 1½ hours to clear out. Why did I pay Rene?
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