We arrived on Monday March 21, 2016 after an overnight sail from the Islas San Bernardo in Sapzurro. This is a small village on the border with Panama. However, there are no roads to Panama or anywhere. Sapzurro has no road connection and as a consequence there are no cars or any motorist transportation in Sapzurro. Not that it is necessary, the town is very small and the entire bay front is about 1 mile long. The town is completely dependent on the regular visits from the trade boats and if the last item is used it will be not available until the next trade boat arrives. The goods are transported into town from the boat using a wheelbarrow. Sapzurro has no internet and a very spotty phone connection with the outer world. We intended to spend only 2 to 3 days in Sapzurro to wait until the heavy swell caused by the bad weather in the central Caribbean and off the coast of Colombia in the Santa Marta and Barranquilla areas. But I wanted to get some more fuel and on my way to the fuel dock I hit a rock and damaged my dinghy propeller. There was no diesel fuel available and also no new propeller. But the trade boat called “Puerto Acandi II” with its home port of Turbo was on its way and it would bring new supplies. The prediction when “Puerto Acandi II” would arrive was not very accurate so we made a daily trip to the fuel dock to hear the latest ETA.

It was the week before “Easter” which is in South America the “Holy Week” and most businesses and schools are closed and people take vacation. This was clear in Sapzurro; every little hostel and camp ground was full of people and tents were placed everywhere. Boats were going up and down to pick up the day tourists and we found out that many of them come from Medellin. On “Good Friday” a lot of the people who were staying the entire week left and most of the camp grounds became empty, but it was the top day for day tourists and at lunch time there were lines in front of the best restaurants. The popular beaches were full of people except the beach where the sailing boats are anchored. Since the town dock has a lot of swell and a lot of boats with day tourists are coming and going we beached our dinghy in the anchorage corner where it is most protected from the swell that is getting into the bay.

The bay has at the entrance on one side high cliffs and reefs on the other and with the high swells and surf this week it was spectacular to see the waves pounding and crashing on the rocks and reefs. The swell is still rolling into the bay and every boat both on anchor or mooring has a line going to shore to keep the boat with the nose into the swell. With these swell boats cannot moor along the fuel dock. All the boats with outboard engines give the tank fast to the dock attendant and while the boat stays off the dock with the fuel in the line the attendant fills the tank and hands it off to the waiting boat. So we were very interested how “Puerto Acandi II” would offload the fuel to the fuel dock. There is no hose or pump to bring the fuel from “Puerto Acandi II” to the tanks onshore. So this is how it goes: “Puerto Acandi II” anchors as close as possible to the fuel dock, the crew dives in the water and swims with lines to shore. The fuel dock helpers roll barrels to the dock and are waiting for a small boat to ferry them up and down to “Puerto Acandi II”. But the small boats are busy with day tourists so the crew throws the barrels from the fuel dock in the water and the helpers swim with the barrels to “Puerto Acandi II”. All the barrels get filled with fuel and thrown back in the water and helpers swim these to the beach. With a dolly every barrel is brought close to the tanks and a small motor pump empties the barrels into the tanks. The rest of the trade is offloaded on the town dock which has less swell and its slips are in the direction of the incoming swell. So we got our fuel and “Island Girl” is ready to sail the “San Blas” islands.

Since we beached our dinghy on the southern side of the bay we had to walk a large part of the shoreline to town passing all the camp grounds, restaurants and hostels. In town the alleys have mostly a narrow concrete walk way but the rest of the bay only has trails or you walk on the beach. To check on the fuel status before “Puerto Acandi II” arrived we had to walk all the way to the other side of the bay. In other words we had every day a nice interesting walk along the bay enjoying the scenery and the people. One day we continued along the coastline north/west in the direction of Panama to a beautiful beach called “Cabo Tiburon”. It is a somewhat secluded beach, but a restaurant makes it a very attractive place to spend the day. The hike over the cliffs and beaches to this location is very beautiful and on places where the swell hits the rocks and the reefs it is very impressive.

In this post I talk a lot about the heavy swell and if you look at the map of the Caribbean and realize that during the winter months from November until April the Trade winds blow from the north/east which means that all the water gets pushed into the corner of the Caribbean and the swell gets bounced off the very rugged coast line of Colombia creating this very high swell.

Besides waiting for a weather window to continue our trip to the “San Blas” islands we wanted to buy some more fuel and to complete some business in relation to our planned purchase of a condo in Santa Marta. But no internet is available and the data use on the phone is very slow to impossible during the day due to all the day tourists. The only good communication is using “WhatsApp”. So we sent instructions using “WhatsApp” to my daughter in Texas and she tried during her normal working hours to take care of our business for which we are extremely grateful. But at least we have some communication; as soon as we leave here there will be no communication at all, besides the expensive Satellite Phone and radio.