We had a very good time in Isla San Andres with the bike rides, snorkeling and diving or just walk the streets and the beaches. A lot of cruisers donot believe that we are tourists visiting beautiful places in the world with the only difference that most of the time we live on our own boat. But we love to be part of the large tourist groups visiting San Andres, have fun on the beach and everything San Andres has to offer. However, we also had a few disappointments while we were in San Andres which were also costly. But the biggest one was still to come.

Our friends from Panache and Imagine Squared were sailing to a very nice island group south of San Andres called “Cayo Albuquerque” but we had to wait until our replacement cooling fluid pump for our generator arrived. The pump arrived a day late but when we had the pump in our hands we immediately asked for a “Zarpe” (Permission to leave) for Providencia. This is a trip of about 62 miles close to due north (20 deg) and that is in this time of the year close to the wind and current so it would take us at least 12 hours to get there.

We left early in the morning with the anchor up at 4:30 AM. We made it safely through the very well-marked channel and reached the exit marker. To safely stay away from the reefs on the east side of the channel we should have continued on a southerly heading but we did not and hit a reef. We lowered the mainsail and put the engine with full power in reverse but we could not get the boat off the reef. We reported our problem with a “Pan-Pan” call and the port captain told us that the “Armada Nacional” was on their way to assist us. Island Girl was stuck on the reef with the nose and the wave action made the back side of the boat bounce on the reef making a scary sound. A sport fishing boat approached us and the captain knew us by name since he was the boyfriend of the lady who sold us my new dive BCD and she had told him about us. I asked the captain if I could throw him a line so he could make an attempt to pull us off the reef. He agreed and his boat with two large 300 HP outboard engines pulled us off the reef in seconds. We checked the bilge and we had no water coming in which was the best news. In the meantime the boat of the “Armada Nacional” approached us and stayed with us while we sailed back to the anchorage. I directly dove underneath the boat to check the damage and found 3 holes in the gelcoat but the fiberglass mats under the gelcoat were not damaged. Our friend Keith from s/v Cheers took pictures of the damage with his camera and we all came to the conclusion that the boat was safe. The next day a local fiberglass repair specialist came, filled the cracks and holes with epoxy and he declared the boat seaworthy since he did not find any vertical cracks which would have indicated structural damage.

In the meantime the weather window closed and we had to wait for a new one. We used that time to install our cooling fluid pump for the generator together with a new starting battery. We took some other bike rides and took a few very nice snorkel trips with our friends Keith and Ida from s/v Cheers. It looked like the weather window we had would not return soon so we chose the day for our departure with the lowest wind speed predicted for some time. It was not ideal but after having been in San Andres for over 6 weeks we felt that it was time to move to our next destination.

Since we expected to have a slow sail with the wind, high swell and waves close on the nose we left even earlier in the morning than the previous time and we had our anchor up at 3:30 AM. We made this time a more than needed U-turn around the reef we hit the last time so it took us longer. But on April 9, 2017 we arrived at 3:15 in the afternoon after a close to 12 hours rough sail at a new island called Providencia. We were welcomed by old cruising friends Jacques and Annette from “s/v Panache” and Paul and Lori from “s/v Imagine Squared”. Jacques helped with problem with our mainsail and Lori swam across from her boat to check our anchor. Not been on shore yet and found already so much love and friendliness.

Providencia is a small island 125 miles off the coast of Nicaragua but belongs to Colombia. Providencia and its little sister island Santa Catalina which is close off its north end are the products of a volcanic eruption back in Miocene Era. Originally Providencia and Santa Catalina were connected but a channel was made by the pirates like Henry Morgan and Luis Aury for defensive purposes. Now the two islands are connected by a brightly colored pedestrian bridge. The bridge is called “Lovers Lane or Puente de Los Enamorados” and is used for romantic strolls at sunset. The pirate Henry Morgan used Providencia as a base for raiding the Spanish empire, and rumors have it that much of his treasure remains hidden on the island. The islands have a mountainous interior which are covered with lush vegetation and are surrounded by a 20 mile barrier reef, the worlds’ third largest. The waters are unspoiled and have beautiful turquoise colors with a great visibility up to 60 feet. The highest peak on Providencia is a 1,200 feet tall hill with on top a 360 deg panoramic view.

The English founded the colony on Providencia based on Puritan values in efforts to curb Spanish buccaneers in the West Indies and to found a colony. Though the small colony was English, the island had a significant Dutch population. The colony is now known for its involvement in the trade in slaves, who were sold and traded in exchange for tobacco, but not for monetary profit, in accordance with the colonists' Puritan values. Occasionally ships from England would bring women. Due to the economic difficulties the colonists faced, they had to turn to privateers to make money.

Although the island is part of Colombia, the 5,000 to 6,000 inhabitants are reported to feel more Caribbean than Colombian, with many Rastafari. With a blend of African, Spanish and English ancestry, the people on the island speak Creole at home, English at school and learn to speak Spanish when they leave the islands to go to the mainland of Colombia. The people on the islands identify themselves very strongly with Afro-Caribbean culture mainly from Jamaica and Reggae is the common music on the island.

As of 2015 the island was not seriously affected by the violent drug trafficking of Colombia, but many islanders were recruited to work for traffickers due to their seafaring skills and knowledge of the waters of the area, and due to the scarcity of other employment opportunities on the island. It was estimated that about 800 young men from the island's small population were in jails abroad or simply disappeared.

The 995-hectare national park Old Providence McBean Lagoon is located on the island's northeast side. This National Park consists of coral reefs, small Cays, mangroves, lagoons and tropical dry forest. The National Park has a tiny visitor center on Crab Cay, from where there are spectacular views towards the barrier reef and the multi-colored turquoise waters that surround the cave.

A local population of Black Land Crabs is noteworthy for its breeding migration, which occurs every April/May. These crabs live in the hills of the island and descend en masse to the sea once a year in late April and early May to lay their eggs. Roads are closed especially during the night and military personnel are brought in to protect this incredible natural phenomenon.

There is no public transportation but along the coastal 10 miles long road you will see very nice bus shelters. May be in the future a bus service will be offered. There is a very limited amount of cars and trucks but an enormous amount of scooters, motor bikes and golf cars. Some people are still using horses for transportation and on the Southwest Beach on some Saturdays bareback horse racing is done. It seems that everyone on the island is watching these races with heavy bets on the outcome of the race.

During our first week on the island, which was the “Holy Week”, we spent a lot of time taking care of bureaucratic “crapola”. We did not receive from Customs a temporary import document for our boat. The local agent here on Providencia did not accept that and he set up a very complicated and costly procedure to solve this problem. On paper we had to leave the country and received a “Zarpe” to sail to the Bay Islands of Honduras, we had an exit stamp in our passports, had to stay on the boat for one day and start the entry procedure the following day like we just arrived on the island. Another 5 boats had similar problems and we all were not very happy with the agents in San Andres we are forced to use for custom and immigration procedures.

We used the days we were stuck on the boat to repair our dinghy. Since a couple of weeks the engine runs very irregularly and stops many times with a lack of fuel. A mechanic in San Andres looked at the outboard engine but could not solve the problem. Since the ‘old’ fuel looked very dirty and had a lot of water in it we threw everything away and replaced it with fresh fuel but it did not make a difference. Jacques from s/v Panache helped me to clean the carburetor and hopefully that will solve the problem.

We did some shopping in Santa Isabel which is the administrative center of the island and had coffee with very tasty pastries in a bakery. We walked around the small village spent some time sitting on the very nice benches in one of the two small parks in the village. We watched the excitement when the trade boat came in and brought new supplies including drinking water to the islands. Providencia has some fresh water streams coming down from the mountains but it is not sufficient during the dry season from January until August and many homes do not have running water during that time. The water is not fit for consumption and all drinking water has to be shipped in. The stores are very well stocked with basic supplies of a very good quality, but a little more expensive than in San Andres.

Together with our friends Lori and Paul from s/v Image Squared we rented scooters to tour the island. With only 10 miles of coastal roads you can do this in about 40 minutes, but it took us the entire day. We stopped at every place where we had beautiful views over the reefs with the most brilliant water colors and visited every bay and beach. The beaches are very beautiful with crystal clear water and the Southwest which is on the lee of the island has very calm water. This beach is the where the horse races are held. We had lunch in a very nice beach restaurant, called “El Divino Niño” and had a mixed seafood plate which was excellent. One plate for both of us was only US$ 13.00. There were only very few people on the beach and many of them were local people because all the schools were closed due to the “Holy Week”. We danced on “Bahia Manzanillo” at “Roland Roots Reggae Bar” which is a colorful beach bar with “Reggae Music” which is played life on the weekend and it has a bonfire pit in the middle. The owner Rasta man “Roland” has created a very special laid back admosphere.

One of the nice surprises was a group of musicians with folk dancing in the very small arrival hall on the airport. One of the instruments used was a very colorful painted jaw bone of a horse. I have never seen an instrument like this. Hopefully we will be able to make a few more trips, do some diving and snorkeling while we are on this beautiful island.