The long trek

Delicado had joined us in Curacao on the 16th December when everything was closed and so caught up with us and the interminable checking in/out procedures. The decision was made to leave earlyish on Friday(18th) morning and head 20 miles along the coast of the island anchoring overnight in a quiet bay before the next early morning start for Aruba where there was no intention of going ashore as there are no facilities for yachts apparently. This was a shame because Aruba is the only Caribbean island that I could say I knew having been there 3 times in 1976 on the Esso tankers. I was looking forward to tasting an "Ariba Aruba" again. Never mind!

On the sail to Aruba, Dick caught a huge tuna…well over 20lbs anyway. The fridge was overwhelmed with the massive amount of fresh fish fillets and this may have been what caused it eventually to fail a day or so later? We haven’t had the thing working since…problematic in this heat. I hurriedly cooked all the lovely fresh (and incredibly cheap) meat that we had bought in Curacao and hoped it would last until we could give some of it to Pam and Jim to keep in their fridge. We have been sailing in company but not putting the dinghy in the water to visit each other. So I lobbed a black sack of salvageable fodder across to Delicado as we up anchored a few days later in another bay en route!!

On the day of the big catch, we anchored in a nice calm bay behind a reef next to the vaguely familiar oil refinery but the Aruba coastguard turned up and unceremoniously turfed us out. Charming! We hadn’t been going to check in after the Curacao farce but now we HAD to as we’d been discovered. Bother! This meant motoring around to the check in place, going alongside, doing all the boring paperwork then moving again to the designated anchorage and then returning early the next morning to check out. This scuppered all the plans to leave early enough to get to our next destination before dark (a tiny dark Venezuelan rock in the middle of nowhere called Monjes...... if you can find it on Google earth!).

It all ended happily however when Dick and Jim sweet talked the customs people who agreed to let us stay alongside for the night as it was unlikely that any other yachts would arrive that day to check in. So we rafted up alongside Delicado and I cooked some of the enormous tuna steaks for us all. I didn’t actually get ashore in the end even though it was now possible but there was nowhere to go anyway. Hey ho. I may have to wait another 33 years to sample Ariba Aruba again!!

After a longish daysail, we came upon the rock Monjes which is a Venezuelan coastguard outpost and really is a long way from anywhere. It’s very small and black (basalt I believe) and virtually barren, home mostly to the seabirds though we couldn’t get ashore to explore. The Venezuelan coastguard were very friendly but left us to tie ourselves up in the little sheltered bay around the back of the island. There is just a ragged rope across the bay to secure to but it worked and we were grateful for a reasonably safe if windy night before yet another early start, this time to the Colombian coast. It's always windy whereever we tie up it seems. Catabatic winds apparently, or Willywaws, which are parcels of cold air that tumble down the mountains.

We anchored in Bahia Honda that evening ( Monday 21st). This is a huge shallow bay with virtually nothing around at all apart from a vague glow of civilization somewhere to the west. I was rather glad to move on! The next day’s sail was a little shorter and the destination slightly closer to signs of life. We had the company of fishermen in little boats whose catch seemed to be crayfish. They didn’t offer us any though!

Now we had a longer overnight sail to the Five Bays area which sounded interesting. Christmas Eve morning arrived with a completely different view to the South…..Real mountains….the Northern extremity of the Andes. How exciting! We could even see a snow capped peak in the distance. This is the only snow you’ll see in the Caribbean and it was quite fitting that we saw it at the right time of year too!

We anchored in one of the Five Bays….Guayraca….our chosen spot for Christmas Day. Delicado were just a few metres away and we had Christmas lunch on board with Pam and Jim. It was a lovely day and extra specially good to have cold drinks from one of their TWO fridges after some days without! It was a little disappointing not to be able to get in touch with any friends or family though. There is no mobile phone agreement with Colombia and wifi is non existent in remote areas.

We left Guayraca on Boxing Day for the shortish sail to Rodadero…..a Colombian tourist resort. The route suggested took us through an incredibly narrow passage with unfriendly looking rocks on either side virtually within touching distance! The photos just cannot do it justice. But we survived! We anchored in Rodadero where the holiday season was in full swing. There was just one more yacht in the bay, an American who said that we wouldn’t be welcome ashore and should leave within 24 hours. We were resigned to staying on board but accepted an invite from Pam and Jim for sundowners on Delicado.

On the dinghy trip across to Delicado, we noticed smoke from the American boat (he was ashore having problems with engines etc). Dick and Jim went across with fire extinguishers but couldn’t do anything as the smoke very quickly became too choking. Pam and I were very nervous about things exploding too. Eventually, several locals noticed and came across on their boats to help. The coastguard were called…we had tried but the language barrier got in the way. Yes I know…..I really should have tried harder to learn Spanish! By now, there were flames appearing and the hapless owner was coming back in his dinghy to absolute mayhem and a boat which is now probably a write off. He was in shock I should think. He didn’t say much anyway. The locals were very helpful in the end thank goodness. There wasn’t much that anyone could have done to save the boat but it was a salutary lesson to us…. Don’t leave the boat with generator etc running. Something electrical had shorted out in a locker I believe.

So we stayed an extra day because of all of this and decided to venture ashore believing that the locals wouldn’t be unfriendly…and they weren’t. We had a very pleasant day in this nice holiday town which included sampling the local beer and dishes for lunch. It’s cheap too. It was very good too to set foot ashore after 9 days afloat. Once again, I wished that I had spent more time on the language, particularly where numbers were involved!
On the last leg of this trek, I spent most of the time trying to master the Spanish numbers......Not very successful..learning at sea is difficult!

OK....so now we're in Cartagena(we had a particularly lumpy trip on the last 50 mile leg with gusts of over 40 knots!) and I'm almost up to date. You'll know this because I've finally managed to post this blog. Sorry it's so long and no photos yet. I'm in an internet cafe in the city which is very nice, cheap and cool. There'll be more about Colombia next time. The good thing is that all the broken things are already being fixed after just two days here.....so much better than most of the other typical Caribbean places.

We are spending New Year's Eve in company with Delicado and Lady Meg. There will be fireworks later and we will have a wonderful view from the anchorage but I won't be taking photos..... they are always the same wherever they are taken all over the world aren't they?
Hope to get another blog with pictures posted soon.
In the meantime.... Happy New Year to all!!!