March 2007




		*To view a photo gallery please click below* *Guanaja to Cayos Vivarillos* *Isla Providencia, Colombia* *Isla San Andreas, Colombia* *Isla San Andreas, Colombia (2)* March 6, 2007 Location: El Bight, Guanaja Nautical Miles Traveled: 0 We’ve been ready and anxious to leave Guanaja for a few days now but the weather has not been cooperating. Unfortunately there’s been a strong northerly front in the area producing high seas and strong winds, not something we want to go cruising in. Two boats did leave yesterday morning saying that the three boats waiting to go with us was being to cautious and the weather wasn’t that bad. Boy, they were wrong and what happened to them reinforced our decision to wait out the weather. Perrilou and Tricerion reported this morning that the winds in 30+ knots and seas 15 to 20 feet. It was so rough that Perrilou cracked their hull and started taking on water. They’re headed back to La Ceiba for repairs and in the mean time there are boaters watching their progress to make sure they make it, the Honduran Coast Guard had also been notified. Tricerion is a trimaran and had some damage to one of the structures between the main hull and one of the pontoons. They are headed back to shelter until they find a better weather window. Right now it looks like anytime between Wednesday and Friday might be good. What we’re looking for is winds between 15 and 20 knots and seas less than 8 feet. We need to sail East to the Vivarillos then South East to Providencia so ideally the winds should be out of the NE for us to be able to sail, otherwise we’ll have to motor. The trade winds here typically come out of the East so we expect we’ll be doing a lot of motoring. The other boats going in our group is Blow Me Away, Winterlude and Sailabout. There are a couple of catamarans also going but they sail at twice our speed they’ll be in a separate group. March 8, 2007 Location: Cayos Vivarillos, Honduras Nautical Miles Traveled: 155 We left Guanaja yesterday morning with our buddy boats and motor sailed 155 miles in 30 hours to a very remote location called Cayos Vivarillos. It is a group of three very small islands and connecting reefs at the Eastern corner of Honduras. There are no settlements, towns or even buildings here but there are a few tents that make up the fisherman camps, there are about a dozen local fisherman that live here a few months at a time. Our trip was excellent and basically uneventful. The winds never shifted to the NE so we ended up motor sailing most of the way here. We enjoyed the company of a couple dozen dolphins as they played all around us and during the night the radar was very useful in helping us dodge a number of squalls and fishing boats. While underway we ate pretty well including red beans & rice, Chinese chicken & cabbage salad and a variety of snack items. While we’re doing a crossing David and I do three hour watches, three on and three off. After 30 hours of being underway we’re pretty beat so we need to catch up on some rest before we go swimming, fishing and exploring the small islands. We’ll get some more updates done after we have some fun playing. March 12, 2007 Location: Cayos Vivarillos, Honduras Nautical Miles Traveled: 0 The Vivarillos are about the closest we’ve gotten to paradise so far and to this date is one of our favorite places. The crystal clear waters, remote location and abundance of fish have made our four day stay one to remember for a long time to come. Our second day here we had a small panga come along side with two fisherman aboard. We bought three large lobsters from them for $10. A couple hours later another panga with two more fisherman came along side and we negotiated for 20 pounds of conch and 8 lobsters for $5. The fisherman were actually wanting to trade their catch for whiskey or cigarettes, both of which we didn’t have so they accepted cash payment. Unfortunately they didn’t have any crab which is what we really wanted. Everyday I went snorkeling and spear fishing with Aaron from Blow Me Away and we were both highly impressed with the abundance of fish here, and more so the size. Every outing would result in some of the best catches we’ve had including large hog fish and snappers. The coral formations were also highly impressive as we’ve never seen such a concentration of elk horn coral before. This area of the elk horn coral ended up being the best hunting ground for spear fishing as we would hover over the coral and watch the large snappers swim in and out of the coral, and we would wait for just the right fish at the right time. The freezer is now full of fish and we’ve got 12 steamed lobster tails, the eating will be very good for the next week. We took a dingy trip with our buddy boating friends out to ‘bird island’, a small island on the north side of the reef. It was amazing to see thousands of birds, mostly frigates and yellow foot boobies on this small sand spit. While most of the birds were in the courting stage for mating there were many nests on the ground and some with young birds. There are some photos in the photo gallery of our trip, the only down side was the odor from all the bird droppings so we didn’t stay very long. We’ve been watching the weather and looking at weather reports, it looks like our window of opportunity to leave for Isla Providencia will be between Wednesday and Friday so we’re getting the boat back to offshore ready. Off to some more new adventures! Waterspouts and Pirates March 15, 2007 Location: Isla Providencia, Colombia Nautical Miles Traveled: 209 We are now officially in our first South American port at the Colombian island of Isla Providencia! We had a very exciting moment as were preparing to leave the Vivarillos on March 13th at 1430. David had brought in most of the chain in preparations of getting the anchor raised, leaving only 50’ until we ready to leave. We had noticed a large squall building in front of us so we decided with the other three boats to wait until the squall passed before heading out to sea. David and I were down below when Aaron called us on the VHF radio with much excitement in his voice. “Bruadair, Bruadair, there’s a waterspout in front of us and it’s headed for right between our boats”, they were only two hundred feet away from us. I jumped out into the cockpit with David right behind me when the VHF went off again “Bruadair, it’s headed right for you, it’s headed right for you!” Just as I left the cockpit and got on deck I could see the water churning right in front of us and saw that the waterspout was headed right on our nose, I told David to hold on. Before we knew it the wind was screaming as the waterspout grabbed hold of our bow and jerked us hard to starboard (right) and a second later jerked us hard to port (left) as the spout moved right over us. It only took two seconds for the waterspout to pass right over us. With each jerk the boat was thrown from one rail to another and after the waterspout passed behind us we noticed that it had moved us 50’ forward. I immediately checked our wind instrument and saw that it had recorded maximum winds of 40 mph, our instrument has always read low so we suspect it might have been upwards of 50 mph. The winds were only blowing about 7 knots prior to this incident. We were very fortunate that the waterspout had just formed only a few hundred yards in front of us before it hit, it didn’t have enough time to build in intensity. We incurred no damage, and watched the tail of the waterspout behind us climb back into the clouds and dissipate. What an experience, and one we hope to never go through again! Jan on Winterlude tried to get some photos but it had moved so fast that she was unsuccessful, but Blow Me Away and Winterlude were just as amazed as we were to see this happen. So after we regrouped we finally departed the Vivarillos shortly after 1500 and were on track for a two day trip to Providencia. We left late in the afternoon expecting to average 4.5 knots, that would put us into Providencia around 0700 a day and a half later. The couple of hours of daylight that we had left on the 13th went by quickly and we soon found ourselves enjoying the first of two moonlit nights that we would sail in to get to Providencia. Though the winds were forecast to be out of the NE, which would have allowed us a very nice sail, they instead came out of the East, right on the nose. So we ended up motor sailing all night in the company of our buddy boats. Because we were entering waters that were known for it’s piracy and drug trafficking boats we had considered running dark, no lights at all. But instead we decided that as long as we were in visible range of each other we would go ahead and keep our running lights on. We did end up keeping radio traffic to a minimum though. During the first night I used our radar and kept the other boats informed of where the fishing boats and squalls were, adjusting our coarse as necessary. There really wasn’t all the much boat activity out there and what there was was very well lit. The winds remained 15 to 20 knots out of the East and the seas were a very comfortable 4 to 6 feet. At 0400 on the 14th of March we found ourselves making the turn around the corner of Honduras and adjusted our coarse to the SE. This is the turn around some small islands called Media Luna (Half Moon), the area we were cautioned about piracy. We paid particular attention to the radar looking for any approaching traffic but found none. Once we adjusted our course to SE we were finally able to turn off the engine and enjoy a wonderful sail at 5.5 knots. At 1000 while I was off watch David called down to me with concern in his voice, telling me we had a fishing boat approaching us at full speed. I quickly jumped into the cockpit and was shocked. A 45’ fishing boat had been following us for a few miles at full speed, when it had caught up to us it came along side us only 75’ off of our starboard beam, then the boat positioned itself so that it was pointed at our bow with what appeared to be intentions of ramming our bow to stop us. I quickly called Winterlude, who was 1 mile East of us, and told them to switch to channel 16 immediately. I then contacted Winterlude and told them we had an emergency, that a fishing boat was positioning itself to stop us. While Winterlude acknowledged our situation my mind was running through ideas, do I get the spear gun? the flares? Do I set off the EPIRB or try to send a May Day distress call to the Coast Guard? But with Winterlude talking to us on VHF the fishing boat immediately stopped approaching but remained within 75 feet of us for a few minutes, then they came along side closer and passed our stern within 20 feet, turning towards Winterlude. As it passed behind us we began to see about 8 or 9 guys come out from behind the walls, it appears they were hiding because no one was visible as they approached. We told Winterlude that the boat was headed towards them, the fishing boat moving again at full speed. But after a few minutes the fishing boat stopped, then turned towards the direction it had come from and left us, again at full speed. While we do not know for sure their intentions we do feel that had Winterlude not been at our side we would have been boarded and robbed. This area off of the Nicaragua Banks is well know for it’s piracy, in which sailboats traveling this area have been, and continue to be victims of piracy. Last year two boats were successfully boarded and the occupants shot. With those stories in the back of our mind we were very scared. We feel that having Winterlude at our side is what made the difference, the fishing vessel would not have wanted witness’s or have to deal with two boats. Some things we could have done is to send a distress call to the US Coast Guard, or sent a distress call to the Maritime Net on our ham radio, but unfortunately help would have been days away. Anyone reading this that is planning on transiting this area should really consider going with a buddy boat. Once that incident was over with the rest of the day went by uneventfully, I mean how do you get any more excitement than that and the waterspout the day before? We continued to sail all day and all night. On this trip the best meal we had was chicken curry and rice, steamed lobster tails, and left overs. Good eating. On the morning of March 15 at 0600 we approached the mountainous island of Isla Providencia. It was great to see land again. Once we got behind the reefs the seas subsided to only a couple feet, making our last five miles much more comfortable. The waypoints we had for entering Providencia were right on, but it was still nice to see a well marked channel with buoys, something we had not seen since leaving the United States two and a half years ago. We made our way into the anchorage and anchored in 9 feet of water, with Isla Providencia on one side of us and Isla Santa Catalina on the other side. Once anchored we raised our Colombian courtesy flag followed by the Quarantine flag. The quarantine flag is required when entering a new country and one must remain on the boat until clearance from the Port Captain, Immigration, and Customs has been completed. We hailed Mr. Bush, a ship’s agent, after we got settled in to represent us for the clearing in process. There were a total of five boats here ready to clear in. At 1400 Mr. Bush along with all the officials arrived by launcha and boarded our boat, the check in process was very easy and took only 15 minutes. After inspecting our boat papers and passports we received our cruising permit, said thank you to the officials as they departed then took down our courtesy flag. As tired from the two day trip as we were we decided not to launch the dingy and go ashore, leaving that for tomorrow. But since Aaron and Lyla already had their dingy in the water they offered to pick us up so we took a quick stroll around town being sure to check out all three grocery stores and as many hardware stores. After a short bit of exploring we ended up at the Bamboo Club for dinner where David had a great crab dinner and I, of course, had fish. Jan and David also joined us and we also had the opportunity to meet a few other cruisers. But now it’s time to retire early and catch up on some well needed sleep. About Isla Providencia March 20, 2007 Location: Isla Providencia, Colombia Nautical Miles Traveled: 0 While commonly referred to Isla Providencia there are actually two islands here, the smaller second one being Santa Catalina. Providencia is a 2000’ foot mountainous island that is 4 miles long by 2.5 miles wide with a population of about 4800 Colombians and is located about 280 miles NNW of the Panama Canal. Back in the day the pirate Henry Morgan used the naturally sheltered anchorage here as his base where he would go out and attach passing English and Spanish galleons that were taking treasures back to Europe. Two landmarks still use his name. Morgan’s Head is a small rock formation overlooking the entrance to the harbor while the peak in the center of Providencia with a crack down the middle is known as Morgan’s Butt. The island of Santa Catalina is much smaller than Providencia and at one time was actually connected to Providencia but over time the two islands separated. Now the two islands are connected by a short but colorful foot bridge. The barrier reef here around Providencia is the third largest barrier reef in the world, Australia and Belize being the first and second largest (respectively). The locals here are some of the friendliest people we have met and the island in this tropical paradise is unspoiled by tourism. Providencia has gone the extra mile to make visiting yachts welcome here. A well marked channel with lit buoys is the first thing one will notice when arriving here. The island is very clean and one will notice numerous trash receptacles all over the island along the walkways and roads, liter is almost non existent. Brightly colored park benches dot the shoreline along the walkway and in town there are also a number of benches and areas to gather. The officials here occasionally put together social functions to integrate the boaters and the locals. At the dingy dock the kids are very eager to untie your line for you, just for the privilege of doing helping out. In other countries they young kids only did so for money. Everything here is laid back. I went to the hardware store to buy a gasket for our faucet which cost 50 cents, all I had was a five dollar bill. Since they had no change they said take the gasket and come back some other time when I had smaller bills, this would never have happened any other place. The heritage here is very mixed, including native Colombians, Caribe tribes and descendants from the slaves, English pirates and Spanish colonists that once occupied this island. The official currency here is the Colombian Peso. On price stickers they still use the symbol ‘$’ and with the exchange rate of 2300 pesos to one US dollar it’s kind of shocking to look at prices. $2300 for a diet coke, $1000 for a beer, $8500 for a box of cereal and $5600 for a gallon of gas. Our dinner out for two with drinks ran us $26500 pesos. There are several old forts with canons that once protected Isla Providencia and many can still be visited when touring the island. A canon is still in it’s position near Morgan’s Head on Santa Catalina protecting the entrance to the harbor. At the low lying village of Age Dulce (Sweet Water) is where the galleons once anchored where they could row to shore and collect fresh water from the mountain streams. Today there are some small resorts and dive centers around the island catering to tourists who come to visit the barrier reef here. There are also gorgeous, near-deserted beaches to explore, steep, jungled hills to climb, enough native-style restaurants and adequate provisioning possibilities to keep cruisers on the hook here for some time. A short historical novel about Providencia’s pirate history, “Piratas en Santa Catalina” was written by a local author and can still be found at various stores around the island. About Isla San Andreas March 23, 2007 Location: Isla San Andreas, Colombia Nautical Miles Traveled: 57 We left Providencia at 0400 this morning and sailed almost due south to the Colombian island of San Andreas. The winds were only 5 knots out of the ENE and seas a comfortable 3 to 5 feet. Because of the low winds we motor sailed the 57 miles to San Andreas averaging 5.3 knots. The 12 hour journey was in the company of our buddy boats Blow Me Away and Winterlude and was for the most part uneventful. While we were motor sailing we were trolling a lure behind us and actually caught a fish! We caught a beautiful 30” Mahi Mahi (aka Dorado). After landing the fish it started flopping all over the deck so I held down the fish while David poured some cheap vodka in it’s gills, seconds later the fish was knocked out. I filleted the fish on the foredeck and we ended up with enough meat for many meals to come. San Andreas was also used by the pirate Henry Morgan as another base in which to raid the passing Spanish and English treasure ships. In 1629 the island was settled by English Puritans then later by woodcutters and planters who brought with them slaves from Jamaica. The majority of inhabitants now are descendants from these slaves and planters. In 1786 Isla San Andreas was awarded to Spain but in 1821 after the Spanish-American war the island became part of Colombia some 440 miles away. Until the 1980’s the mainland government of Colombia had very little to do with San Andres and Providencia so the islanders remained English speaking and Protestant. In recent years the Colombian government has become more involved and has now banned the teaching of English in island schools so the language is now shifting towards Spanish. San Andreas is to Colombia what Hawaii is to the United States. It is much more developed and sophisticated than it’s smaller cousin of Providencia. There is less physical beauty but much more shopping and eating opportunities in this duty free island. As we approached San Andreas it became very apparent that this island was much different. While Providencia was dotted with small colorful homes and businesses San Andreas was crowded with fancy high rise hotels along it’s beautiful sandy beaches. It did feel like we were approaching Hawaii. After setting the anchor we went ashore with our buddy boats and waited for our ship’s agent so we could clear in with the Port Captain. There’s lots of exploring here to do over the next week or two. Lots of land exploring, we love to check out the grocery stores and hardware stores, then we’ll have to check out the fancy beaches here too. There’s also a lot of water exploring to do along the reefs, a few ship wrecks to check out and maybe even more fishing. The water here is so clear that you could probably see if a coin is heads or tails in 25 feet of water. This is by far the clearest waters we’ve seen to date. We’re also hoping to see if we can catch a local soccer game sometime while we’re here too. We’ll update the site again before we leave here with some further notes on San Andreas and photos. For dinner tonight we’re having fresh Mahi Mahi. March 26, 2007 Location: Isla San Andreas, Colombia Nautical Miles Traveled: 0 After being here for a few days we’ve had an opportunity to see a small part of the island. Our first exploration was to see the big city life. We walked from Nene’s Marina where we locked up the dingy and walked towards the tourist district. Tall hotels, fancy restaurants and high class stores filled the street sides. Anything a tourist would want could be found here. Because San Andreas is considered a duty free zone for Colombia there are stores filled with all sorts of house hold items including furniture and appliances. These can be purchased at a considerable savings and then taken back to mainland Colombia via air. The airport here on the island is pretty large with domestic and international flights from Taca, Copa, Avianca, Republic and Continental Airlines. We’re not the typical tourists, avoiding the normal touristy stores with clothing and souvenirs but rather going for the hardware and grocery stores. We’re also pleased to have found fast internet service. Yesterday it was time to fill our fuel tanks. We took advantage of the low cost of diesel here ($2.15/gallon) and jerry canned 55 gallons of diesel and 13 gallons of gasoline. After filling our tanks it was time to explore the waters for the first time since arriving here. David wasn’t up to being in the sun today so I went snorkeling with Dave on Winterlude. Our friends Bob and Judy on Amazing Grace had told us the water here was so clear that it was like snorkeling in a bottle of gin, and they weren’t kidding. The clarity of the water was so impressive that seeing in 30 to 40 feet of water was absolutely amazing. I could see forever, eyeing all sorts of marine life including groupers, snappers, eels, lobster, and huge rays. This is definitely the place to do some extensive snorkeling. We’re hoping that tomorrow is calm enough to get on the other side of the reef. When I got back to the boat from snorkeling I decided to snorkel around the boat and after a half hour something under my rudder caught my attention. I dove down and retrieved an old wallet and immediately brought it up to the dingy. Unfortunately there was no identification in the wallet but there was $260,000 pesos (about $120). Further snorkeling did not reveal any other treasures but we’ll continue to search! March 29, 2007 Location: Isla San Andreas, Colombia Nautical Miles Traveled: 0 Wow, we’ve only been here in San Andreas a short while and it’s already time for us to start moving again. This is a place where we could really spend a long time. We’ve enjoyed the window shopping at nice stores, exploring and finding excellent gourmet meat and cheese stores, walking the beach and lots of snorkeling. The $1.00 lobster, fish and crab empenadas we bought from a street vendor were great too. We haven’t even made a dent in this small island but unfortunately we’ve decided to move on South with Winterlude. We debated long and hard about staying here a couple more weeks with Blow Me Away and in the end decided not to. We’ll catch up with them again in Bocas Del Toro, Panama. We also heard on the net this morning that many of our friends back in Guanaja left yesterday and are now making their way south, hope to see them again in Panama. Our reason for not staying here any longer is that Colombia has a law that states a foriegner cannot be in Colombia for more than 6 months in a 12 month period, and that leaving the country does not negate any previous visits. We would really like to go and visit Cartagena on the mainland of Colombia and spend as much time there as possible, so unfortunately that means we have to cut our time here short. We found a new place south of the harbor to snorkel in a couple days ago, one of the better places here. Lots of snappers, some hogfish, a nice variety of reef fish and we even spotted a couple new species that we had not seen before such as the Glasseye Snapper. Dave on Winterlude went with me and he spotted a nice sized stone crab in about 20 feet of water and since I had my pole spear with me I went down and got him. David steamed him and it was excellent. The weather looks good for leaving tomorrow so it appears that we’ll be leaving here on Saturday for the 200 mile trip south. We figured that if we leave San Andreas at noon we should arrive sometime Monday morning. We’ve heard so many good things about Bocas Del Toro that we expect to spend a couple of months there, maybe longer if it’s as good as everyone says. We here the waters are very clear, good fishing and snorkeling, nice town with all the ammenities and hundreds of miles of coastline to gunk hole in with the boat. Looking at the map the bays there are very big, it’ll be fun. We haven’t thought much past Bocas, we know we want to go to Colon, Portabello and the San Blas Islands, guess we’ll have to start making new plans after we get to Bocas. Our next update should be in a week or two after we arrive in Panama, stay tuned.......

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