Yesterday we arrived at Confadia Nautica de Pacifico in Algarrobo, Chile, our home for the austral winter. After many miles upwind, we are looking forward to a break from sailing and seeing a bit more of Chile inland.

There is a massive J/70 fleet here as well as a sizable fleet of J/105 and Soto 40’s, all of them are dry sailed! Although the sailing season is winding down here, we hope to see some Chilean racers in action.

We are securely tied off to a dock in a far corner of the marina. We may haul Give’r out later to do some maintenance as well as keep her on the hard while we do some traveling.

Thus far our route down the Chilean Coast has been: Iquiqe to Antofagasta (200 nm), Antofagasta to Caldera (200 nm), Caldera to Coquimbo (200 nm), Coquimbo to Hiquirllas (200 nm) and our final short leg form Higurillas (where we stopped to avoid some stronger Southerly winds) to Algarrobo (30 nm). As the prevailing wind along this route are from the south, and these winds are often quite strong, we’ve been picking our weather windows patiently and very carefully, waiting for light air days. This means that we have had to motor quite a bit to get here, but it’s a trade off we were happy with to avoid beating into heavy weather and seas. Our goal was to sail this portion of the Chilean coast (north of 33 deg S) between early February to late April, while the winds are lighter and seas more settled. Overall, sailing down the Chilean coast has gone very well thus far!

We plan on sailing from here to Puerto Montt in late August- early September, when Westerly and Northerly winds make the passages along this very windy stretch of Chilean coast a bit more bearable, after the strongest winter winds and heaviest seas have passed. We’ll see how it goes, and keep talking to local sailors about the best timing and strategy for that passage. For now, we can take a break from checking the weather multiple times per day 😊

Algarrobo is a fairly upscale resort town, we’re about 15 minute walk from its center. The marina is adjacent to a nature reserve, home of the Humboldt penguins! We’re happy to be here.

After a 2 day sail from Iquique we arrived in Antofagasta, a city located in the Atacama desert. We received a very warm welcome at the Club de Yates de Antofagasta. Chile continues to draw us in. The scenery is amazing, but it is the people of Chile, their friendliness, kindness and generosity that make this a very special place to visit.

So, this was the leg we'd been thinking about for a long time. It is the less travelled route to Chile, not a lot of people sail it.

Typically boats that are approaching Chile from the west would head to Easter Island and then to Puerto Montt. We've decided to take the costal route. It's 1600nm upwind against the Humboldt current but we had heard people have done it.

Our hope was that we could hope down the South American coast, stopping in Ecuador and Peru but Ecuador is not really safe on the coast at the moment and Peru is not really welcoming to recreational yachts (i.e. they treat small boats like commercial boats and it costs thousands of dollars to clear in if you can do it at all).

In the end we had an uncomfortable but not dangerous passage. The Humboldt current is mostly non existent (thanks to the current variation of La Ninia, The "La Ninia Midoki" where the East soide of the Pacific looks more like El Ninia providing little upswelling and reduced currents).

It took us 18 days with about 5 of those motoring. There was a log pressure west of us for the first few days so we got a favorable south wind, the middle 800nm or so was a beat upwind, and the last 4 or 500 nm was light so we motor sailed.

We're now in Iquique, pretty much the north end of Chile. We'll do a bit of boat work and some sight seeing before we hope down the coast with the intent of spending a few of the winter months just west of Santiago.

So, yes 2000nm beating up wind: worth it.

We spent 5 weeks in Columbia. Tying our boat up in Santa Marta marina gave us a great home base to explore both local and inland.

The town has grown since we were last here in 2016 but it is still an amazing, mid sized city that gives some of the best food, people and nature Columbia has to offer.

Marina Santa Marta is a well managed, modern marina. The marina staff act as agents and check in and out is performed through them, right at the marina. Very easy.

We met some of old friends (Cecilia and Mark) and made many new.

Like every other stop over we had some boat jobs to attend to but thankfully Amazon.com can deliver small (less that $200USD) packages to Columbia without any delay. This meant we were able to get lots of small stuff and finish up some jobs.

One of our firs stops in Santa Marta was Lulu's, an empanada restaurant that we loved when we were there last and is still going strong. Columbian food incorporates lime/acid in a way that bring out some amazing flavours and the stacked, meal-size empanadas at Lulu's are amazing. Other restaurants in Santa Marta did not fail to disappoint and between the affordable cost of eating out and the heat on we spent most evening eating out.

We managed to take a few trips inland, our first was with Michelle and Marty from Platina II. This trip centered around Minca, a small tourist town about 40km outside of Santa Marta. It has, in the last 20 years opened up and embraced the eco tourism way. We stayed at Jungle Joes for a couple of nights and did a birdwatching trip (they say they saw Toucans, I did not, I am still looking) and a guided hike into the jungle.

Travel in Columbia is cheap. flights were around $60USD per person so we flew into Bogota, stayed there a few days and then on to an amazing hike in Los Nevados National Park where out guide took us on a 4 day march up to 4100m in altitude. We stayed at local farms (Fincas) with dorm rooms built up. It was cold, it was high and it was beautiful. We would highly recommend El Sentero touring and our amazing guide, Danny.

Tasting fruit in Bogota during our bike tour


Sleeping in style, a finca (farm)


4100m altitude with our guide, Danny


After we got back to Santa Marta and caught our breath we went back out with Platina II to hike to the lost city. This was a well organized 4 day hike that lead us to the recently restored lost city in the mountains where the natives went to escape the Spaniards and continue their way of life.

Climbing up to the lost city


A small part of the lost city


Extracting fiber for cloth


Leaving Columbia was bitter sweet, we wanted to stay and travel more but a weather window opened up to Panama and we took it.

Boarded by customs on the way out :)

Last week after a fairly pleasant and uneventful passage from Aruba we arrived in Santa Marta, Columbia, a lovely city at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

There is lots to do and see in this vibrant part of the world, exploring historical sites, hiking in the mountains, playing in the ocean (we're slowly learning how to wing foil), wonder through the narrow streets of Santa Marta from one food vendor to another, find a patio and watch people go by.... in addition, as always boat jobs await :-)

The photo above is of Tim on the streets of Santa Marta enjoying a bag of chichorones he got from a street vendor...

A couple of weeks ago we lifted anchor in Spanish Waters, Curacao on our way to Columbia. We had light winds but overall it was a pretty good weather window.

We spent the day motoring, some current against and some with but overall making just under 7kts boat speed. The idea was to round Punta Gallinas during the lighter winds of daytime and also plan to arrive the next day in Santa Marta before sunset.

During one of the "day tank" regular top up activities, where we move diesel fuel from a storage tank to the "day tank" where it can be gravity fed to the engine the fuel transfer pump finally cached it in and started tripping the beaker and stopping us from filling the day tank any more.

We were about 20nm away from the Customs and Immigration dock in Aruba and we had about 25 liters of diesel in our day tank. The decision was made to detour and get to the check-in dock before sunset. All went well and the amazing people at Customs and Immigration let us sleep the nigh at their dock.

Funny story (?) While replacing the port diesel tank level sender in Curacao I managed to drop a screw in the tank... yup butter fingers. Stainless screws don't go well with aluminum tanks, so I followed the boat rule: The person that drops it, recovers it. This meant going elbow deep into the diesel tank to get around the baffle and recover the screw. Not my finest hour but at least we have working tank gauges now but I'm pretty sure this stirred up some sludge and put the final nail in our fluke transfer pump's coffin.

We are currently on the mooring ball and Varadero Marina enjoying the breeze and waiting for our replacement fuel transfer pump (and our new spare) to be clear by customs.

We've had an amazing couple of weeks here but are eager to continue on to Santa Marta. Hopefully we can cast off on Tuesday.

Some additional notes, the work on Give'r is paying off. Not only is she a comfortable, safe and dry boat but some of the luxury(?) items are paying off. We have recently got the bow thruster working, repaired the high pressure pump on the watermaker and installed balanced blades on the wind generator. This all means we can hang out on the mooring ball using just wind and solar, making fresh water and using our washing machine... it's a nice treat.

Hiking out the Conchi Natural Pool


Checking out some of the caves


Finding another 600+ step staircase to climb (this one was easier than the one in St Helena)


And over all enjoying the island.


Aruba is a beautiful island and the people are amazing.