Pitufa.at

We’ve left the realm of the reliable trade winds we enjoyed so much since leaving the everchanging winds of the Med. The trades don’t reach southern Columbia, without wind it’s incredibly hot and as a prelude to the sailing in this area we had to motor against a very light southwesterly wind to reach the archipelago of the Rosarios, about 17 nm southwest of Cartagena.

We don’t have detailed charts of this area, but had to rely on the description of the channel through the reefs to an anchorage (Free guide of Columbia). “You’ll see a cement post” Right, there it is! “Leave it on your starboard side” Perfect, still 30 m deep here, “you’ll see another two posts, pass between them” Ok, going through, still 4 metres under the keel, 2 metres… “swing left” Ok, 1 metre, 0.5, not good! What now, left, straight?? 0.1, 0.0 CRUNCH.

We were going less than a knot at that point, reversed, got back into the channel and nothing happened. But the description definitely should have said: “Go through between the posts, THEN ANOTHER 30 METRES STRAIGHT, and then swing left… Anyway, inside the reef the canal is between 4 and 5 metres deep, we anchored there and spent a quiet night. Today 2 men in a small boat tried to persuade us to spend our last pesos on a necklace, but we bought two freshly caught fish from another boat instead for less money.

The bay is quite pretty, but there’s weekend villas all around it and small boats filled with tourists rush by. We’ll clean Pitufas hull and move on as soon as the wind looks strong enough to carry our heavy Smurfette to the next island.

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Wir haben das Reich des verlaesslichen Passatwinds verlassen, den wir so genossen haben, seitdem wir die staendig drehenden Winde des Mittelmeers hinter uns gelassen haben. Der Passat reicht nicht bis in den Sueden Kolumbien hinunter, ohne Wind ist es unglaublich heiss und als Auftakt zum Segeln in diesem Gebiet mussten wir die 17 Meilen bis zum Rosario Archipel suedwestlich von Cartagena gegen einen leichten Suedwestwind hinunter motoren.

Wir haben keine detaillierten Karten von dieser Gegend und mussten uns auf die Beschreibung des Kanals durch die Riffe zum Ankerplatz verlassen (Free Guide of Columbia). “Sie sehen einen Zementpfosten” Ja, da ist er! “Lassen Sie ihn auf Ihrer Steuerbordseite) Perfekt, immer noch 30 m tief, “Sie sehen zwei weitere Pfosten, fahren Sie zwischen diesen durch” Ok, sind durch, noch 4 Meter unterm Kiel, noch 2 Meter… “Biegen Sie nach links” Ok, 1 Meter, 0.5, nicht gut! Was jetzt, links, geradeaus?? 0.1, 0.0 RUMMS.

Wir waren mit weniger als 1 Knoten Fahrt unterwegs, kurz rueckwaerts und wir waren wieder im Kanal, nix passiert. Aber die Beschreibung sollte definitiv laufen: “Fahren Sie zwischen den 2 Pfosten durch, DANN WEITERE 30 METER GERADEAUS und dann links… Naja. Innerhalb des Riffs ist der Kanal zwischen 4 und 5 Metern tief, wir haben dort geankert und eine ruhige Nacht verbracht. Heute wollten uns schon zwei Maenner in einem kleinen Boot ueberreden, unsere letzten Pesos fuer eine Kette auszugeben, wir haben lieber bei einem anderen Boot 2 Fische fuer weniger Geld erstanden.

Die Bucht ist ganz huebsch, aber rundherum stehen Wochenendvillen und kleine Boote voller Touristen duesen vorbei. Wir werden Pitufas Rumpf putzen und sobald ein Wind aufkommt, der stark genug wirkt um unsere schwere Schlumpfine zu tragen, geht’s weiter zur naechsten Insel.

This morning we reached Cartagena–Pitufa’s first anchorage between skyscrapers!

We passed near the Five Bays north of St. Marta this morning, but decided against stopping because of a favorable weather forecast for today. There is less wind now, so we’ve slowed down a bit. A group of dolphins is taking a joyride on Pitufa’s bow wave, sitting under deck writing this blog entry we can hear them whistling We havn’t seen dolphins for ages.

Yesterday we started out at dawn from the tiny island “Monjes del Sur” and managed the 85 sea miles around the northern cape of Colombia in only 12 hours. Either the cape is better than its reputation or our timing was perfect–we had a wonderful sailing day with 20 to 25 knots of wind and moderate waves (depending on the ground between dark blue and light pastel turquoise). We stayed close to the Colombian coast and were surprised how dry the landscape is. Dark grey mountains behind light brown cliffs, no trace of plants.

As we were approaching Cabo de Vela and the anchoring site right behind it in the evening, there was a sudden jerk on the trolling lure (our third try). What we thought was a “little fish” turned out to be a 40 cm yellow fin tuna–we couldn’t have picked a more perfect catch on the fish market… Leeloo had been sleeping under deck but a 6th sense told her that something interesting was going on and she turned up in the cockpit as soon as we had the fish on deck. Loudly meowing she claimed and got the first piece right then and a huge portion later on

After rounding Cabo de Vela we dropped the anchor in the wide bay and I started cutting out fillets and we had sushi as a starter . Interesting was the sudden change in air temperature when rounding this cape. While the wind was chilly all the way from the Monjes, it suddenly felt like coming from an oven. After this strenuous day we fell into the berth and slept for 12 hours.

During breakfast Pitufa suddenly started pitching violently in the waves–the wind had shifted from East to Southeast, freshened to 30 knots and over the several miles wide bay immediately a high fetch built up. 10 minutes later the situation was already so threatening that we decided to move to another spot further in. I jumped to the wheel, Christian ran to the anchor, started the windlass–nothing. The winch made no move, but there was no time to find the reason for the failure. Christian winched up the anchor manually–not funny in these conditions and also dangerous for the fingers… Now we anchor one and a half miles closer to shore and Christian has just found the problem of our windlass and fixed it. We are watching the kite surfers close to the beach who clearly enjoy the strong blow more than we do and are waiting for the next weather window to sail down to Cartagena.

The “los Monjes” archipelago off the Colombian coast looks like some rocks from the moon fallen into the Atlantic… There’s only a small military station on these tiny, white rocks, which offer no protection from the howling wind and no anchorage. We have tied to a line that is spanned across an artificial bay. 4 people from the coast guard welcomed us to the station and insisted that we should pick somebody for a “safety inspection”. The polite, young official then invited us to take a walk around the rock and to visit the station, which we’ll do now. A small step for mankind, a big step (up onto the concrete dock) for us! After a rather calm and very quick passage to this spot we’ll wait here until tomorrow, when the wind is supposed to be lighter around the cape as well.