And we are about to get underway again. We will be departing from Isla San Andres tomorrow for our 210Nm dash to Colon Panama. There is strong North wind coming in, which should blow us nicely to Colon in Panama, winds in the back, that is how we like it. In Colon, Panama we will do the clearing into Panama and subsequently sail on to San Blas, a group of Islands 80Nm East of Colon. We want to spend a few weeks in the San Blas prior going via the Panama Canal into the Pacific.
We had a great time on Isla Providencia and Isla San Andres. Both are Columbian territory and the locals speak Spanish and Creole (also called Patois), a language you find often also in Jamaica and a mixture of old English and West African local languages. On Isla Providencia the majority speaks Creole, thus the Jamaican background is very apparent. In the local bus (van) on Isla Providencia that drives around the island in 30 minutes a few times a day, a local lady made it jokingly clear to everyone in the bus that Spanish should not be spoken on the bus, only English (They call it English, however is a mixture of several languages and we are certainly unable to understand it). Most prefer the Creole, however by Colombian law Spanish is taught on the local school so the little kids all speak Spanish. The Creole they get from home. Isla San Andres however is pure Colombian and they are proud of their Spanish language and Colombian background, they are only a mere 80Nm apart from each other but quite different.
We spend about a week on Isla Providencia before we sailed on to San Andres. Somewhat unplanned, as we had planned to sail direclty to Colon in Panama, however with a lumpy sea and Auke having a bad bout of seasickness we decided to divert to San Andres, only 11 hours away.
Isla Providencia is a remote small island, a rock surrounded by reefs, beautiful and un-spoilt and the locals make a sincere effort to keep it that way. A rarity in nowadays cultures we find. Supplies on Isla Providencia come from the island San Andres and from Central America mainland in old fishing boats converted to cargo ships. Years ago while backpacking our way from Mexico to Chile overland, I travelled from Panama to Columbia on one of those old converted fishing boat. That trip turned out to be a bad four day experience that involved big seas, a poor old ship, broken ports due to the big seas and two seasick backpackers. So when I saw these old converted boats, it brought back some vivid memories.
Isla Providencia is very quiet and truly a little paradise, a great spot for a passing sailing boat. It has some great beaches around the island and a fringing reef protecting the island from the heavy Caribbean Eastern swell. The locals are great and proud of their little island. It is primitive and remote, if you want to get away from everything for a while, this is the spot. However besides rainwater there is no water available (other than bottles of water), so for us without a watermaker we had to depart as we run low on water in our tanks. A pity as we could have stayed longer to explore the beaches and many reefs.
Isla San Andres is something totally different, equally beautiful and similar in size, it is set up to be the tourist place for the middle class of Colombia and other South American countries. Tourists which are flown in by plane loads. However in a nice way, no resorts, just small hotels and pousadas and tons of small restaurants and bars on the streets that line the beaches and happy South American beach goers. Good quality supermarkets with everything available for relative good prices and many shops trying to sell everything a possible tourist might want. The island is equally fringed by an even more brutal, unforgiving and beautiful reef, that has captured a many ship in the past, up to very recent. We arrived in the middle of the night (02:00) and in the moonlight the outline of a small sized cargo ship (coaster) was clearly visible against the horizon. However there were no lights visible on the ship so we assumed at anchor with no lights (normal around here). The next morning at daybreak it became clear the coaster was sitting high and dry on top of reef, less than half a mile from the entrance. A recent casualty and it is obvious to see that they likely tried to cut a corner or simply missed the entrance by less than half a mile, which here is unforgiving and cost you your ship. The seas will eat her up in the next one to two years. Another very large ship, or the remains thereof litter the entrance of the reef, an old causality.
The entering at darkness (no moon) was well to do due to the good charts (Colombian charts) we had in our CMap Max and the entrance contain a series of working lights. 16 lighted green and red buoys marked the entry into the bay. The red white outer marker with white flashing light we failed to see initially which gave some concern, however the following red and greens were clearly visible, visually and on the radar so we decided to proceed, assuming the red/ white outer marker buoy had been removed. Well the red / white outer marker showed up only a few meters ahead of the bow, it had not been visible against the illuminated skyline of the island. Heloisa spotted it just in time so we could go around it. The remaining buoys were clearly visible with the one very challenge however that the Columbian nautical authorities have given all red and green buoys (16 of it) the same flash code on this island, all ISO 3 seconds!! So it is challenging to figure out which buoy is next and when you miss one you can quickly end up on top of an underwater rock.
With help of radar and plotter and Heloisa up front at the bow we managed the 2.5 Nm inbound and dropped anchor in between some old fishing boats and a catamaran.
The San Andres bay is full with old cargo ships and fishing boats seeking shelter for a few days. There were two other sailboats when we arrived at anchor. On the first day we managed to get some (expensive) potable water for our near empty water tanks which should get us to Panama.
On Isla Providencia the anchorage in the bay is excellent, as we had some windy Caribbean days with over 30 knots of winds consistent, but the anchorage was smooth as could be. There was also the occasional rains shower, but that is part of the tropics and required a quick dash on deck to close the hatches etc.
During the rain shower days we spend the afternoons on nearby beaches, accessible with the dinghy, where you can access to reefs right of the beaches. I would spend my days looking for eatable fish of sufficient size on the reefs with the speargun. On the clear non-rainy days we would take the local van, that drives around the entire island in 30 minutes and had us drop off on one of the Eastern beaches, where Auke enjoyed the surf on his un-separable body board. On his way to one beach which required a short hike he quickly became friends with the local piggy, which you could smell from a mile distance.
A great spot was this little paradise Isla Providencia and Isla San Andres is a great spot to get a good meal in a restaurant or simply enjoy the many shops (Heloisa) loaded with goodies for the South American tourists.