As we stepped out of the marina gates, we were struck by the amazing vibe of Santa Marta and Colombia; lots of colour and loud, Latin music. I immediately wanted to dance, as the salsa beat grabbed me but alas, I had no partner, Pete not being one for dancing. There were people, everywhere, walking in couples or families and street vendors pushing laden carts around. As we were tired from our 2 day passage, we were out early for tea and not looking to explore. We headed to the opposite side of the marina, to a two story food court and found a small restaurant, Reses 13, doing steaks. It soon became apparent that hardly anyone in Colombia speaks anything other than Spanish and a local dialect at that. However, we knew exactly how to order beers and above the bar, there was a helpful diagram of a cow, showing the cuts of meat. We ordered a 400g sirloin steak (strip loin in US speak), with fries and sauces, to share. It was delicious. During dinner, we watched a gorgeous sunset and the appearance of the new moon. The final bill was 94,000 pesos, approximately £23.50, including the optional 10% service charge. The waiter had managed to tell us the exchange rate was around 4000 pesos to the dollar and Revolut gave me just over 5000 pesos to the pound. Having returned to the boat, we set our watches back an hour, for the time difference between Colombia and the Caribbean islands. Colombia is GMT -5. We were in bed by 7.30 pm and despite the noise of a strong and gusting wind, we were asleep in no time, exhausted.
I awoke around 3.30am to find the boat floor covered in dust, which had blown through the open hatches. The wind had dropped and I went back to sleep for another couple of hours, waking again, briefly at 0600 and eventually waking fully at 0830. 13 hours in bed has to be a record for me, so I really must have needed it. After a quick breakfast, Pete took the large bag of washing to the laundry, while I made up the beds with fresh bedding and put clean towels in the bathroom. I headed for the laundry area too and found Pete waiting for his turn. There was a queue as so many boats had arrived yesterday. Once we had the first load in, we went for lunch. Then the second load went in and the first was transferred to the dryer. During the course of the day, we met Eddie and Richard, friends of Chase and Natalie, Adam and Bev, from Blu, Avi and Mitch from Miocene, with their friend Amanda and also an Argentinian guy who had been sailing the other boat of the four that travelled together from Aruba. We all exchanged stories about the trip, the weather and mishaps along the way. The bedding dried well in the tumble dryer but the clothes did not, so I pegged them out on the rails on the boat. There they dried in 30 minutes but probably had sand ingrained due to the wind. We were supposed to be going to the hotel pool to swim but Pete had disappeared. I found him on Richard's boat, drinking beer with Richard, his girlfriend, Nav and Eddie. I joined them for a couple before heading to the showers.
For dinner, we headed further afield than the previous night, turning off the front and heading into the narrow backstreets and wide open squares, which were filled with shops, restaurants and bars, serving all types of food. We settled on a small restaurant, where we sat on the sidewalk for a drink, before ordering food. The mojitos were good! There were lots of street pedlars and musicians setting up, playing a few tunes and them moving on. Twice, we were serenaded by rappers, which I found amusing but Pete didn't appreciate. 'You are the power and she is your flower' seemed to be a popular lyric. We moved to a table inside to eat and listened to a young lady playing electric violin just outside. The food was great and inexpensive. It definitely wouldn't be worth provisioning to cook dinner on board here. On our way back to the boat, we paused for a beer at the marina bar, where we met Sieze, from Turkey, which led to a lot of chat about the places we had been on the boat, over there. We were in bed at 9.15pm, so not a late night. It was blowing a hooley again but during the night it calmed and then came the mosquitos.
Saturday 1st February - Happy birthday wishes were sent to Lynne, my brother's partner. We had cheese spread on biscuits for breakfast, for the second day running, being all we had in the fridge. We needed to obtain cash, a sim card for the phone and find a supermarket. Luckily, we met Hugh and Debbie as we hit the pontoon. They had been in Santa Marta for a year, so knew exactly where everything is. We headed to Brot with them for coffee and I treated myself to a chocolate croissant. There we downloaded lots of information from our new found friends. They advised us not to sail to Cartagena, due to the difficulty of getting back up from there to Panama and also suggested we stayed longer in Santa Marta, to allow the winds to ease. We could visit Cartagena by road. At that point, we decided to stay for a month and do our sightseeing from here. It also made financial sense, as the agent's fees for customs clearance and immigration are waived by the marina and they apply a 35% discount to the mooring fees, such that a month cost not much more than 2 weeks. We found the bank but didn't find the mobile phone shop suggested by Debbie but with a lot of help from locals and Google translate, we found another one. A 31 day sim card with 18GB cost 46500 pesos (just over £9), so was really cheap compared to home. The supermarket closest to the marina was a reasonable size and had a good selection of fresh food, freshly baked bread and pastries, as well as a meat counter, alcohol department and household goods. We provisioned with breakfast items, beer and wine, took them to the boat. We ate lobster cerviche at the marina bar / restaurant, for lunch and then headed to the AC Hotel to swim. Hugh and Debbie were already there and while we were there, everyone else we know, turned up in 2s and 3s. The pool had been taken over by the yachties. The pool is on the fourth floor and surrounded by glass. There's a great view of the marina too. However, when the wind blows, it whips up waves in the swimming pool. Back on board, we plugged into the electricity supply, connected the water and washed the boat. For tea, we returned to 13 Reses, where Pete had the 250g steak and I had the lighter chicken skewer, both very tasty and tender. Pete had 4 beers, I had 2 wines and the bill was £26.83. Loving the prices in Colombia! Back on board, I put the mosquito nets in and sprayed around with Raid and we had a drink in the cockpit while the smell disappeared. It was another windy night, making it difficult to sleep, even though Pete had changed the mooring ropes to our stretchy ones, to reduce the creaking and lurching.
Sunday morning, we paid a visit to Yerlis, our agent in the marina, to extend our stay. She said she would prepare our invoice and we could settle it tomorrow. She was delighted that we were staying longer. I headed to the Captain's lounge to do the cashflow (once an accountant, always an accountant), write the blog about our passage and do a Spanish lesson on Dualingo. Pete went into town to look for an air filter but all the shops were closed. We went out to find somewhere for lunch but many of the bars and restaurants were also closed. We found a fish and seafood place, in a little courtyard, on the edge of the big square. There were a few tables already taken but plenty of room for us. The restaurant is called 'Donde Chucho Gourmet' and we will be visiting again. They provided a menu in English, that went on and on. You could eat here every day for 3 months and never have the same thing twice. I chose the seabass in garlic sauce and Pete had octopus crackling, which turned out to be breaded and done on the grill. Even I liked it and I am not a fan of octopus. The wine was of a better class than other places and no more expensive. A man set up and played electric cello, which added to the experience and created a lovely atmosphere. We ordered more drinks, then went back to the boat for an afternoon siesta. We then had a quick beer at the marina bar, where we were becoming well known, before Pete serviced both heads (toilets) and I researched excursions, hotels and buses, for trips to Palomino and Minca. There were gales overnight, so I was glad I had dosed in the afternoon.
On Monday morning, I met Debbie at the marina gates, to go to Pilates. Juan, a driver, picked us up at 7.45am for the 15 minute trip to Avila Pilates Studio. I had been expecting a room with mats on the floor and a class of maybe 20 people, so was surprised to enter a small studio, with TRX and machines that looked like the rack i.e. torture. There were 3 people doing their programs already and we were having a private lesson, something that Debbie does 2 to 3 times a week. We stretched using the TRX and then laid down on the racks, putting our feet into stirrups. This was Reform Pilates, something I had heard of on Facebook but never seen. It was a good, hard workout, for an hour, for legs, arms and shoulders while keeping the core engaged; lots of 4 sets of 20 reps. I would be feeling this tomorrow.
Back at the marina, we took down the Yorkshire flag, which had been half shredded by the gales overnight. Pete sent a WhatsApp to Juan, the driver Debbie uses, to arrange a pickup at 1130 hours, to take us to the Buenavista Mall, outside of town. As the water on the dock is not potable, due to silt, we wanted to look for a filter to enable us to use the water for drinking. First stop though was the food court for lunch, where we ate Mexican burgers which were full of sloppy, refried beans and guacamole; edible but not particularly nice. We spent an hour in the Home Store, where we found a filter but couldn't find the adapters we needed to fit it to the tap and our hose. We browsed the designer shops, then bought provisions at Exito, the large hypermarket. Juan collected us just after 3pm for the journey back to the marina. 30,000 pesos (£6) return. We sat at the bar in the marina, talking to Karen, who works there. She was practising her English and I was practicing my Spanish. I was on day 3 of Dualingo. I booked us a hotel in Palomino for 3 nights and we confirmed with Karen that we had the correct bus stop on Google Maps, for our journey tomorrow. On our way back to the pontoon, we came across Adam, carrying a 20 litre bottle of water, which he had purchased for £2 from the mini-market on site. We decided that was the way to go for filling our water tanks, rather than fitting a water filter to the supply on the dock. Adam, Bev, Avi and Mitch had been to Minca on a Jungle Joes tour. They said the place was nice but that the tour wasn't worth the money if you had seen cocoa and coffee fields before. We told them we were heading to Palomino tomorrow and showed Adam the photos of the hotel we had booked and the price and he was amazed, saying he would also look at it as they were ready to get off the boat, once they had fixed some of the issues that arose sailing here. We set the alarm for early next morning.