circumnavigators, officially!

having come back to the same particular point on earth or port after having crossed all the meridians and the equator at least twice, we have now become circumnavigators. cartagena became our chosen port. we came here first after coming down from the bahamas and jamaica back in the spring of 2009, and now we are back here again almost three years later. we feel pretty good and proud about the achievement. we sailed around the world!! with no incidents and only amazing experiences.., and one only not so wonderful but certainly something we will never forget, which was the entire convoy experience and the pirate waters in the indian ocean.

we would relive every single second of this experience over and over again… every day of our adventure was and felt like the best day of our lives. the circumnavigation lasted 2 years and 10 months; that is sailing alone; as we started probably a whole year before to fix the boat back in florida. so, really our whole plan and crazy and wonderful story really started back at the end of 2007 in a comfy apartment in very urban miami ….. and now, after four years of not so frequent fresh water showers and rather humid beds in all sorts of exotic places, we finish in the amazing city of cartagena. a fabulous place to call port for puerto seguro and close enough to travel back and forth from our other home in florida.

puerto velero

after 60 miles of nonstop strong winds we decided not to sail during the night and avoid having a scare in the last 60 miles of the trip… so we stopped at the windy but totally flat water bay known as puerto velero; precisely in the middle between santa marta and cartagena. we must have had over 40 knots of wind all night and kept thinking how lucky we were to have stayed at anchor for the night and not be out at sea sailing. I do not want to imagine what it is like to have the waves we had all day crashing from behind on a total dark and moonless night. there is a big marina complex under construction in this bay, but because there is nothing ready yet, we anchored with lots of space to drag. there are several beach tents and we saw a lot of windsurfers and kitesurfers in very small kites; a sure sign that is too windy for the boat. So we enjoyed the view, had a great dinner and went to bed with the noise of the halyards banging against the mast, but extremely happy to be in bed and not doing watches in such a windy night.

on the morning after we woke up and set sail for the last 50 or so miles to cartagena. a smooth and fast sail on very shallow waters hugging the colombian coast.

bocas de ceniza

on top of the strong wind and rough conditions we had to cross the mouth of the magdalena river, at a place called bocas de ceniza which is known for constant formations of sand banks, strong currents, rough and confused seas, and even debris floating around such as tree trunks and dead cows. not a place we were looking forward to sail through. but we had to inevitably. So we set a course to sail 3 miles from land and passed the mouth of the river there. when we got close, we saw waves crashing against what it looked to us as sand dunes!! our harts stopped when we thought we were sailing directly towards land. fortunately we soon realized there were no sand dunes. rather, there were only waves crashing against the strong current of the river and the totally brown color of the magdalena not mixing with the blue ocean, made it look as land. the boat moved so much when we were crossing that half of mile stretch that we decided to strap ourselves to the boat, something we never felt we needed to do before. After the experience, the seas started to calm down (to still rough conditions), but under the circumstances, it seemed to us the seas were actually smooth. sadly the color of the water remained dark with a hint of green or brown. it seems the river darkens the waters of colombia from its mouth to the west all the way to cartagena and probably beyond.

santa marta winds

leaving the windiest city known to us was not easy. this stretch was one of the most difficult ones of our entire world experience. it was only 130 miles from santa marta to cartagena, but unfortunately with 40 knots of wind and current against. once we left the marina there was absolutely no way to go back. we had the wind from the stern and the waves, for the first time in the entire voyage, were crashing us from behind and we had water coming in the cockpit. we sailed during the day to make this easier, but still it was creepy.

more boat work

we are almost done with the circumnavigation, but that prahse never applies to the work on board. there is always some project that needs to be done. in this case while in the marina santa marta esteban worked on the anchors, the chains and the anchor locker, the closets (building badly needed shelves in all of them) and the upholstery of all the interior cushions, the generator and finally a project with the aft locker. the marina was a good place to do this. in total we spent over a month in santa marta. everyone there was very nice to us, and the marina itself was really top class; one of the best in the world. for us santa marta was a very different experience; living in such a nice marina and having more of a local life. we were with family and local friends and enjoyed the city and surroundings. we are definitely coming to terms with the fact that we are almost finished with our circumnavigation, but still enjoy our days and life on board.

cinto

cinto is the last of the five bays of the tayrona park from west to east. Once in santa marta, esteban toured them all with local friends. Because it is a park, cruisers are not allowed to anchor overnight. Tourism is restricted and it is very rare as there is no access to the bays from the roads, so the access is limited by sea, and even then, sailing upwind from santa marta with constant 30 knot winds is not an easy affair… the result: paradise for only a few. A place so beautiful and so remote.. one can only hope that places like this do remain as such - completely unspoiled.