Thursday, December 24, 2009

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM CARTAGENA

Friends are a very special jewel----
We appreciate every one of you.
Cherish the time you have together,
Living in a High State....









We wish you all fond memories during this Christmas Season that will warm your hearts for years to come with Health, Wealth & Happiness in 2010. We miss you all, Love Lynn and Randy
Here are our first impressions of Cartagena, wondering the streets of the Historical Centro.























Centro is full of Museums, Cathedrals & Restaurants.

Centro is full of Plaza's













Fabulous door knockers.


































A beautiful private home.












Wednesday, December 23, 2009

COLOMBIAN COASTLINE--PART II

We've had enough of the Five Bays Williwaw's, so we'll head 15 miles down the coast to the resort town Rodadero.










Trying again to catch fish---Almost caught a bird ....Thank goodness he did not get hooked...He sure did a lot of head shaking though.








We were the entertainment for the locals who circled our boats in kayaks and peddleboats. We would have to go inside for a bit of privacy. We enjoyed swimming however, the water is not clear.








Found a great beach bar with our Dutch friends.










A local vendor came by with excellent beef kabobs for $1 US.










Taking the weather window to cross the Rio Magdelana.. This is Baros (Linda and Hans)











The Rio Magdelana looked like landfall. It is so brown. We stayed approximately 4 miles out from the mouth of the river. It's important to make this crossing as early as possible, before the wind,seas, and currents pick up. We constantly watch for debris.








Closing in on Hermosa where we will anchor for the night we adjusted our coarse by 20 degrees west from Pizzaz's waypoint to get further away from the shore line.
Anchored off the small fishing village at Hermosa. Hermosa was renamed Puerto Velero after all the stopping sailboats. We spend the morning cleaning HIGH STATES. We can not believe how dirty she is inside and out from the spray/water crossing the river. Even inside we have a thick layer of grit.






Linda and Hans suggest we all go in to shore for Cervesa.The locals wanting our business help bring in the dinghies.










Before Cervesa we take a two hour hike. We are attacked by no-seeums.











I am assuming these small fish will be used for bait.











Now it is time for Cervesa. And we are thirsty.












It's the end of another great afternoon. We all lend each other a hand to get the dinghies back in the water.










The next morning we say adios to Baro. They are going to spend an extra day at Hermosa while the rest of us have decided we will head for Cartagena....50 miles away....








We've decided to head more W than SW to try and find some wid, We keep in contact with TARA who have decided to motor closer to shore. Twenty five miles later we find wind but we are averaging only five knots.
We are pleasantly surprized when we're hailed by APPLESEEDS who we have not seen since last July in Grenada. They are only about 15 miles behind us.

Off Cartagena---the skyline looks like Florida.












Approaching the opening in the underwater wall to Boca Grande (Big Mouth)... We've got seven feet under the keel. We've still got a few miles to get to the anchorage...but we have arrived in Cartagena; four and a half months after leaving Grenada. The whole trip has been such a great experience.

















































































































































Tuesday, December 22, 2009

MONJES DEL SUR AND THE COLOMBIAN COAST

We've got 385 nautical miles to travel before reaching Cartagena.
We’ve received confirmation on additional insurance for Colombia at an additional cost of $800, so we’re off to Monjes del Sur which is in fact part of Venezuela. We’re travelling an average of 7 knots under only the Jib with large swells and then every 20-25 seconds a very large wave making for a lot of surfing….\We are travelling with John and Nancy on DIXSEA .We’ve also been hailed by TARA (Erno & Frieda)…Nice to have more company.
We’ve had contact with the local coast guard. They’re requiring we go to the dock on arrival for inspection.
1720hours… Well, the last four hours have been a challenge. After contact with the coastguard we worked our way to the west side of the island---huge waves and higher winds. We start preparation for the dock, getting fenders and lines ready. A fellow off Talagoa dinghies out and tells us not to go to the dock as it is too shallow and another fishboat is arriving and wants to tie up there. He helps us with our bow lines tying us to the one and a half inch rope. There is already four sailboats on the rope. We’ve got seven fenders out to keep us off Talagao.
TARA brings over the coastguard and we check in. They are very friendly and seem happy to see us. DIXSEA hails the coastguard, who are at the moment with us, as they want to tie up. The coastguard give Randy approval to communicate with DIXSEA that it is okay. In the meanwhile, more fish boats are arriving and the wind is howling.
On their second try DIXSEA get attached to the rope on our port side while we’re all moving fenders around to keep boats safe. Erno off TARA literally is using his dinghy as a large fender between us and DIXSEA.

Later TARA come by and tell us the fishermen are interested in trading for MAHI MAHI. We go over with 2- 10 packs of cigarettes, much to their delight. These are the cigarettes we bought in the DR so who knows if they are any good. As we leave the fish boat they call us back. Do we have any anti-inflammatory tablets on board as one of the crew has a swollen knee. So back to HIGH STATES for tablets and a tension bandage.

Around 1630 there’s whistling etc around us. John says the fishermen want our attention. We’re the only ones with a dinghy still in the water…"Can you take us to shore?" Randy picks them up and they say “Please pick us up at 1800hrs.” Now Rand is a taxi, but does not mind.

Boats on the line. HIGH STATES fourth on right.











We have a great view after a short hike to the lighthouse.. Originally Monjes del Sur was two islands. They have been joined by a large wall. HIGH STATES was covered in salt spray that was thrown over the wall from the high seas.




Tara has decided to leave tomorrow morning and ask if we would like to come along. We agree the weather is looking pretty good for the 83nm trip. I decided we’d have a nice dinner tonight. By 1600 hours I’ve got the veggies on and the steaks ready. We are looking forward to a nice quiet evening before tomorrow’s trip.
Suddenly 01700hours and ALL HE!! BREAKS LOOSE!!!!
The fish boat PADRE COSMOS has squeezed in front of another fish boat at the dock putting pressure on the mooring rope. Another fish boat comes up to the dock creating a huge swell which pushed PADRE COSMOS further into the rope snapping it. All the boats are struggling not to hit one another, get their engines started, make sure lines don’t get caught in props and keep away from the rocks.. We’re all being carried rapidly by the current toward the rocks piling up on top of one another. The battle is to free our two mooring lines before coming in contact with another boat. Not even a minute to spare the three cats have come together and trying to sort themselves out while we are beside TARA and being dragged by one of our moring lines toward their port stern quarter while DIXSEA on our port is being dragged to our port midship. Initially Randy ran to our bow to try and prevent our anchor from contacting TARA----Erno runs to his stern to help so we don’t make contact and says to Rand “Save yourself” as he pushes us off after we have a noisy superficial hit. Randy turns around wondering what Erno means. DIXSEA is entangled in our life lines at mid ship. Once again superficial damage as we help each other to separate. At this pont one of our lines is under our keel—Rand yells to me “Don’t put the engine in gear….” GADS!!!!!!

By 1745 we’re anchored in 62 feet and seem to be holding however, the other evening we watched fish boats anchor and drag. TARA hail us and ask can we leave tonight in an hour. We say yes!!! Beef tenderloin in sink----Let’s get moving.

By midnight we’re in rolling seas wth 15-23 knots of wind and continue to sail along averaging 7.1 knots. Since we left Curacao we have been having some of our best sails...
We arrive in Cabo de la Vela, Colombia at 0830 the next day and are anchored in 11.5 feet. N12*12.299 W72*10.705. These co-ordinates are a little west of the one’s noted in PIZZAZ’s articles.

Before sunset a local fish boat came by. We expected them to sell us fish. No, do we have any food? We give them a can of chicken and oranges.



Dec. 1st Last night’s fish boat came by this morning towing a smaller boat. This time they wanted us to buy lobster. We bought one for $3 US. As they were leaving the smaller boat hit HIGH STATES and proceeded to capsize. The larger canoe style boat made a great effort not to hit us again as they hauled the fellow with his nets into their boat. Good thing we are leaving this morning. We contacted TARA and both agreed we’d leave at 1100hours as we want to arrive at Five Bays 120 miles away in daylight.

1300hours. We can see TARA on the horizon. We’re travelling between 6-7-7 knots in high rolling seas.
1410hours TARA hailed us to let us know a seismic surveying vessel is heading East dragging a 5mile cable.

Sure enough we get hailed and are requested to alter course to 270-280 degrees. Two hours later we get a call back that we can work our way back to our original course. Thank goodness as the past two hours have been miserable with the high cresting seas on our mid ship getting us wet.

With the seas following us now we are having a better ride, however a number of high cresting seas up to fourteen feet are actually landing in the cockpit.

Off Five Bays we could not see the snow covered mountains.











Off the entrance to the third bay....Bahia Guayraca.











We have caught up to Baros. They hail us to let us know that when we anchor to give ourselves lots of room as everyone is swinging in all different directions. 0925 hours and we're anchored in 20.7 feet of water. After anchoring we are invited over to Baros for a cup of coffee.






The Five Bays have been compared to a Norwegian fjord. They actually remind both Randy and myself of our home on Finlayson Arm.
We all decide to go to lunch on shore at the local restaurant owned by Reinaldo and Maria. This meal is a whole fish, beans and rice and a salad of onion and tomato for $10US., not inexpensive but the beer was only $1US.








Reinaldo and Maria


Maria
Back corner is Maria's kitchen.
Dec. 4th We had a very wakeful night. The Williwaw winds from the 20,000ft high Santa Marta Moutains are blowing with 30-50 knot gusts. One cat dragged in the middle of the night. We have decided to play it safe today, staying on the boat instead of going on the planned hike. We have also decided it's time to head to Rodadero tomorrow a short 15 mile trip.

51 NAUTICAL MILES TO ARUBA

We managed to get up real early( 0515 hours) however decided to wait for a bit more light.
By 0625 we’ve got the main up and then the anchor.

We’ve enjoyed 9 or 10 Bluenose Dolphins playing off our bow. They are breaching, slapping their tails. A fabulous one hour show. We in fact took a couple of short movies with the camera but I have not had any success uploading.


By early afternoon the winds are too light. Now we have an ETA of 1700 hours so we decide to put the motor on as we do not want to arrive at dark.
Off the southern coast of Aruba.

Aruba’s protocol is very different from all the other islands we have visited. We had to hail the Port Authority on channel 11 requesting permission to enter Bacadera Harbour to check in with Customs and Immigration.

By the time we tie to the dock, with only a couple of feet under our keel, complete all the paper work, it is almost dark and we have to move to an anchorage off Oranjestad a number of miles to the north. So I asked the Port Authority if we could possibly stay at the dock overnight and was pleasantly surprised when they said yes.

This dock is full of Venezuelan fish boats. As we’re enjoying a well deserved sun downer two young Venezuelans come over and we all try to communicate. They are eyeing Randy’s beer so we offer them each one. They continue to sit and one points at his knock-off Crocs that are in bad shape all the while eyeing Randy’s Crocs. They just won’t leave, so we decide to get busy, clear the deck and cockpit of everything not “nailed down” for the night and head down below.

Early next morning we moved to the anchorage off the northern end of the airport in Oranjestad. The approach is straight forward and we started to anchor in 8.8 feet of water. Unfortunately the holding is not great. We dragged back some 50 feet ending up in 36 feet under the keel.

We were happy to meet up again with friends Linda and Hans off Baros. They showed us around town. Almost every street corner has a casino.
A bus ride up to the NW end of the Island where all the Hotels are situated with pristine beaches was worth while, however the Island is so commercialized we won't be staying too long.

We've also caught up to Avalanche a Danish boat with four children on board.. Nikki & Marcus came over to borrow our water jugs.

Nov. 27th. We are trying to finalize additional insurance coverage so we can travel to Colombia. We told Linda and Hans not to wait for us so we've said Adios to them this morning.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

CURACAO

We are amazed at how quickly these past 2 ½ months have flown by. The Immigration Rules allow us to stay for a maximum of 90 days total between Bonaire and Curacao. We have been told to provision in Curacao before heading further west as the assortment is better and prices more reasonable.







It's very easy to take the boat into Harbour Village Marina to fill up on fuel and water.










And we have to get in one more day of snorkelling with Tom and Bonnie (Toujours)









This Flying Gurnard has iridescent blue lines and dot markings.











Wed. Nov. 4th
Goodbye to Bonaire at 0400hrs.
We’ve got very light winds.










By 0800 we can see Curacao pronounced "Cure a so "
We've had no luck with our new fishing gear.

1440hrs. N12*04.681 W68*51.584 We’re anchored in Spaanse (pronounced Spanish) Water. This 36 nm trip took approximately 8 hours, one hour working our way into Spaanse Water.







It looks like we may be in a channel….markings are not clear…..We called over a passing dinghy, Pam & Bill off Songbird who we met in Grenada (not Pat & Carol whom we met in the DR)…They say, Yes, we’re pretty close so we decide to move just to be on the safe side..,
1515hrs. We’re re-anchored across the “channel” . Sure enough a local comes by in a sailing skiff---“You’re in the channel; you have to move”.. Two hours later this fellow comes by again by dinghy with a “map” in hand stating we along with a number of boats are anchored in the wrong location. We say no problem. Of coarse by this time we are frustrated and say we’ll move tomorrow morning as Song Bird plan to leave at 0900hrs, so we’ll go up to their spot.

Nov.5
By 0940 We’re pulling up anchor and hopefully for the last time will be re anchored at N12*04.653 W68*51.466. We’re in 30.4 feet with 130 feet of chain out.

Now we need to make the trip into the Capital, Willemstad, to check in with Customs, Immigration and then the Harbour Authority for an anchoring permit. (This is a first)
We make our way to the dinghy dock which is located at the Fisherman’s wharf and then the short walk to the bus station. We asked a couple if we were at the right place. They said yes, but we just missed the bus and the next one would not come by for an hour. We decided to start walking. By the time we reach the next “Bushalte”, we are hot and tired. Who are to become our new friends Hank and Diana stopped and kindly offered us a ride down town. It turns out they spend half the year on Curacao and the other half in Upper State New York.

Before we know it it’s lunch time so we stop at a restaurant and are entertained with the floating bridge. This pedestrian bridge has to be opened every time a vessel needs to enter the Willemstad canal.

Customs is very straight forward. We did take a couple of wrong turns finding Immigration. We stopped and asked a few people but they had no idea of the correct location. Finally, there was a very official looking gentleman at the cruise ship dock. We stopped and asked him if he knew where Immigration was….Sure enough we were at the location; just needed to walk down to the dock and make a left. Again forms were easy to fill out and no cost. Last stop is the Harbour Authority who want to know on their map exactly where the boat is and how long we are planning to stay. Now firstly, their map is different from the one the man in the anchorage had, and two, we are under no circumstance allowed to move without prior approval from the Harbour Authority.
Curacao is only 35miles north of Venezuela and 43 miles from Aruba. The origin of this islands name is under debate, One explanation is it is derived from the Portuguese word for “heart” which is Curacao because the island is heart shaped. Curacao is 37 miles long and between 3 and 9 miles wide. The population is over 150,000 with the official language being Dutch. English, Spanish and Papiamento are widely spoken.
We found Willemstad delightful and made a point of travelling the 45 minute ride by bus into this historical city. It is unfortunate it is so far away from the Spaanse Water anchorage.

We are disappointed with the wi-fi signal on the boat. Time for a strong antenna. We did however enjoy the supermarket’s private bus. It would arrive at 1000hours daily and take us to “Vreugdenhil”. They had a very good selection filling most of our needs.

As far as the anchorage; we are very thankful we spent most of our time in Bonaire. I honestly think the locals who use Spaanse Water would prefer us not to anchor here. The cigarette boats speed by as do the large motor boats kicking up huge swells and then all the small sailboats and sunfish boats sail through the anchorage not bothering to use the channels..,,Even the Yacht Club that has a cruiser Happy hour twice a week handed out a notice saying it is okay to use their dock for the Happy hour but one must join the club to use the dock at any other time. The fishermen’s dinghy dock was friendlier with a 24 hour guard, but could be lengthened three times from its 15 feet.

It was fortunate there were public garbage cans across the street from the fisherman’s wharf as no garbage was to be left in the fishermen’s garbage cans.
We explored Spaanse Waater by dinghy and came across this small channel where we found a golf coarse.










Many of the homes reminded us of Shawnigan Lake at home.










The Venezuelan boats arrive with fresh produce at a downtown market.












Nov. 12 We felt very priviledged being invited to Hank and Diana's home .
























The next evening we went out for dinner for Hanks Birthday











Nov. 14 Water delivery from Bridgette was well worth the 12cents a litre.











Nov. 16 An impromptu lunch break with fellow cruisers. The majority of us had gone into Willemstad separately to check out and ended up in the same restaurant.









Nov. 17th. 0500hrs. We’re up trying to send a couple of emails but keep loosing the signal. We’re heading for Santa Cruz Baii with a two day stay permit.

We are in fact concerned the Swiss boat that anchored in front of us may have their anchor lying on top of ours. We had contacted them last night stating we were planning to leave this morning around 7am. They too were planning to leave but not until nine. They were in fact up early getting organized but by 0710hrs they did not have their engine on so we put all our fenders on our starboard side. The woman yelled over they couldn’t get their engine started while the husband looked like he was reading a novel?? So, slowly we moved forward, Randy slowly raising the anchor cleaning the chain along the way. Six feet apart and alongside them our anchor is up, but we both are stressed.
By 0800hours we’re through Spaanse Water channel. We’ve got only a bit of wind and a gentle swell off our port stern.
Rand has spent the past forty-five minutes re-doing the foresail roller furling line that has come off its spool. Thank goodness it is calm.
We’re anchored in the gorgeous Santa Cruz Baii. There is only one other boat, the Canadian vessel “Dorothy Ellen”. We had met Pam and Don in Trinidad so we snorkelled over to say Hello.

Even with the Baii being very nice we’ve decided one night is enough and we should take advantage of this good weather window and head on for Aruba.