It is not the clear-sighted who rule the world.
Great achievements are accomplished in a blessed, warm fog.
- Joseph Conrad -



Map: ©Microsoft Encarta World Atlas


Colombia





I thought Trinidad produces a lot of sweat. I was wrong.
I thought Chaguaramas has the worst barnacle growth. I was very wrong.
I thought Colombia was a bit dodgy. I was very wrong.
I thought Power Boats in Chaguaramas was the worst marina I've seen.
I was wrong again! Life's full of surprises.



Some people may associate it with cocaine, drug smuggling and prostitution. Go right ahead. You might be right. Colombia has been suffering from a bad reputation for a long time. Some years back Venezuela was the unexplored secret paradise and Colombia was the dangerous drug running country on the verge of civil war. "All the cocaine trade has moved into the Venezuelan coast", we were told by a 35-year-old middle-class Colombian. It's easy to believe. Yachtsmen have been shot dead in Venezuela, while Colombia seems to offer - in our experiece - a bunch of friendly, laid-back people and no security problems whatsoever. Fair enough, there is a fairly heavy presense of "safety enforcement crew". It's funny how crime levels stop when ordinary have-nots are surrounded not just by glossy sports cars and speed boats but also by a continuous precense of machine guns and 1000 horse power chase boats. Yeah, we felt safe and I would not have dared to litter!

The point is, of course, that the Colombians are lovely. In fact, out of all of Caribbean, I would vote Cartagena as the best city. Perhaps even one of the best cities I've ever visited. (I agree, London, Paris, Sydney, Prague, Seville, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Cape Town, Amsterdam and even Helsinki all have their own special charm too) As before, we only skimmed the surface, but whether in the city or out on the islands, the Colombians were truly and remarkably wonderful. I never locked the dinghy or the outboard, day or night. I never locked Aliisa. Well, Aliisa has really only been locked twice. (the first time was in Madagascar and the second time was in .... I can't remember!)


The Carib Centre - a large western style mall - provided an escape from the heat in the streets. Yeah, we did succumb to the McJunk a few times.


Let's go back to the crossing from Jamaica. Hence the heading:

The crossing from Jamaica

The major pain in the ass heading south from Port Antonio is clearing the eastern tip of Jamaica. The wind was light but still against us and after about 12 hours of motoring, I managed to set Aliisa on a tight reach towards Cartagena, Colombia. Our main autopilot was dead and the wind vane still a piece of scrap metal. I was happy to notice that I still remembered the old bungy cord trick from the past. Yep, Aliisa sails well with the wind forward of the beam, all by herself, with a flexible wheel "lashing".


Hold on, sweetie-pie, five more days to go...


The wind picked up slowly to a solid 15kn - later increasing to 20 and finally to a full 25kn easterly trade. Wind on the beam is sort of good. Sort of. The real problem was not just hanging onto 32 feet of floating steel but the cross seas that were bouncing her along. A bastardly interaction between an ENE and ESE swell created an interesting motion on board. While the heat, salt and the sun kept adding to the discomfort, I have to admit that we made some significant savings on the food department - hardly anything was consumed for the entire 5-day voyage!



Despite the rock'n'roll, I was very pleased with our passage. I had just enough energy to feed my loving wife Annina and myself, do the SSB stuff, including weather info and to keep an eye on the horizon. Cartagena, here we come! The semi-permanent Colombian low-pressure was not very pronounced and we managed to slip in behind the corner just before the wind was starting to pump up to it's typical 30-35kn in the acceleration zone near the coast. It was a pleasure to enter the magically flat seas SW of Pt Canoas and leave the windy Caribbean behind - forever? From here, we'd be licking the coast and motoring along in the typical light-and-variable winds of Panama-Colombia coast. (Never mind the massive thunderstorms, associated squalls and frequent lightning strikes that we get in return...?)

But first, Cartagena. The City. Hence the heading is now:

The City

The second oldest city in Colombia. The home of the world's most active barnacles, able to cover any paint job and bite trhough any poison you've got on your hull. Its ability to produce exhaustion without excercise is second only to a well heated Finnish sauna. Possibly. A city of a million cheerful, happy, friendly and lovely Colombians. Yes, it became obvious in the first five minutes in the city. For the first time since leaving Europe, we were able to walk around town and not be hassled by anyone. Don't get me wrong. Hassling is great fun and offers endless opportunities to make contact with local people, it's an important part of travelling and a lot of it results in good trading, good bargains of local products, sometimes even friendships. But sometimes it's lovely to just mind your own business and let other's do the same.

Allright, people are friendly everywhere, if you are friendly to them. One waitress can makes a restaurant good. One man on the street can make an entire city seem lovely. One experience will taint or color our perception of an entire place and one bad day will make the whole world seem bad. We also all get what we deserve. You put out a shitty attitude and shit will come your way. Put out some sunshine and find yourself in the warmth of other people's love. In Cartagena that warmth would be heat.

In fact, if I was the product development manager for any large deodorant company, I'd be doing all my testing in Cartagena. If you can get an "all day protection" from your Rexona in Cartagena, you can go to Hell and smell nice! Would that be a good slogan for Rexona? Something like: "Go to Hell and smell good!" or "How in Hell can you smell so nice?!" or maybe: "If you wear Rexona you can go to Hell!". Yeah, I know, my dream of being an advertising excecutive will probably never be fulfilled... back to the city:
Every one of us can change the entire world - for one person.
- LG -



We dropped the pick as close as possible to the thick of things next to Club Nautico. The aim was to be in range of any potential non-secure wifi signals. The plan worked poorly but with constant re-aiming of our best antenna, I managed to maintain one of the few functioning connections while Aliisa was doing 360's in the "light and variable" climate of the harbour. (Try "CPESCA_OUTDOOR" if you're close to their marina or point your antenna to the high risers for a "Belkin 54g"). The Club also has two wifi signals but making them work from a distnce requires a fairly good antenna. The holding was good and the marina with its facilities was close. Only the latter proved to be true.




Often the only possible place to be, the hammock with a shade on top, trying to catch a breeze. Skip of Sy Java Moon on the left.




We put the dinghy in the water and I stepped into a swamp. The inflatable Zodiac floor was empty (of air) and the cavity underneath it was full (of water). A lovely combination of two leaks. All I needed now was a mangrove tree, a zillion sand flies and a few crocs to be back home, up the shit-creek in a barb-wired canoe without a paddle. Nah, the old Yamaha 4hp started nicely, there was no barbed wire in sight and our first South American City was right there infront of us. The outboard ran half way there. Nice one. Paddles out! Annina was sweating like a pig, without lipstick, but looking more like Freddie Crueger ready to rip my head off. We made it to town and back and I promised to fix all problems, as always. As soon as possible.




You need a new keyboard? Gimme 20 bucks while I take mine off. "You can have it", said Rei and most certainly knew where to get himself a new one for ten.


The worse time was from 8am to 12am. Total calm. Total heat. Total apathy.


There are two agents that yachts use in Cartagena, David and Manfred. We chose the German-born Manfred and we would choose him again. This is an official endorsement, though we have nothing bad to say about David either. (Manfred's details are at the bottom of this page)

I had promised Annina that we would not leave Cartagena until all the gear on Aliisa was back up and running. That was a bit silly of me because I usually keep my promises. Our main autopilot was broken, the windvane had never worked, the fixed Garmin 152 had a shorted antenna connection, the hand-held Garmin 72 kept turning itself off or freezing when touched and the Northstar 5" chartplotter was playing up and fogging up. My laptop keyboard was getting worse, with a quarter of the keys not working at all or only intermittently. We expected Cartagena to be a city of all services. And maybe it was. Almost.




No offence, but I would need the marina fees to be paid TO ME, in order to put my boat in here. This is strictly for those who must have power for their air-con and are willing to sacrifice all else. A well anchored yacht is more secure in the harbour.




The problem with the big autopilot turned out to be moisture inside the rate-compass. Lovely. Made for the ocean, has one circuit board and a fluxgate compass balanced in a tiny liquid dome. No moving parts. Recommended retail price around 600 euros in Finland. My €250 Olympus digital camera with a zoom and a large LCD screen can be thrown on the floor and then taken to 3 meters underwater with no problems. Dear Navico, could you please call the guys in Olympus and ask them how the hell they do it and then do it too? Please. It'll be cheaper than the time your management and custormer service people spend with me regarding this issue.


Stress Management, Rule number one: "Find out who's problem it is and give it them!"







Cartagena harbour has several marinas, tens of yachts at anchor, a navy base, a large number of high-speed coast guard patrols and lots of little leaking fishingboats, bashing the surface to scare fish into their nets.




Fortunately the company I bought the gear from (Maritim) in Finland has been keen to fix the problem. And I know they will. Such a lovely bunch. I worked with them for a year and I still miss them all. Don't tell anyone. It's un-cool to say that you love someone in that dark cold miserable country, unless you've had a few drinks.

My next problem turned out to be the various rumours and reports about getting Fedex and DHL packages into Colombia without the customs holding them and charging storage plus tax. There was a back-door way of doing it to and from Miami. But my gear needed to be flown to and from Finland, not Miami. I didn't want to include half-dozen middle men and different loop-hole tactics while sending 5000 dollars worth of gear for a trip around the world. Nah. I packed up the shit - mostly badly pressed circuitboards lodged in a piece of plastic - and stuffed it under the aft cabin bed. The little Simrad WP32 (fixed again) would be our trusted pilot. The Garmin 152 got its antenna fixed (it was chafed and the unit was fine). The Northstar still worked ok, just fogging up and sometimes losing the track and speed. The hand-held Garmin and the big Simrad autopilot were dead. But then again, we're all dead. We're just here for a holiday from being dead. What a great holiday!






You could find just about anything in Cartagena if you knew where to look. A spare blade for a blender or a seal for your pressure cooker, a new second-hand keyboard for your Toshiba lap-top. It's on the street, in one of these stalls, somewhere here...


The Marina

There was "Club Nautico", a Family Business established a few decades ago by an Aussie guy and his local wife. Some people may associate it with cocaine, drug smuggling and prostitution. Go right ahead. You might be right. Apparently some years ago the dude got caught with... a ton of cocaine (That's 1000kg) and "some" bags of heroin on board his yacht Sy Silva. Needles to say, the guy is not here to be interviewed at the moment, so I'm relying on heresy, spanish language newspaper archives and those who have read them. The story of Club Nautico and the family that owns it had a plot that thickened every time I asked someone about it. In fact, the plot was so thick I didn't want to ask too many questions.

The club itself was quite nice, at least potentially. Good shady outdoor restaurant area and a nice bar, TV room and simple, mostly clean showers. But there was a few little problems. There was no breakwater, leaving the marina totally exposed to the swell and completely open to the south, the direction of the wind in most squalls. On a typical Sunday one large passenger vessel would create a wake large enough to have the masts of two neighbouring vessels almost touch eachother. Yachties are faced with a daunting task of keeping their vessels as far as possible from potential damage to themselves and their neighbours while still being able to monkey themselves in and out of their floating homes. In a word: I would never leave my boat there without 24/7 supervision.




Concrete and white paint hugging the anchorage of Cartagena. The city is beatiful, safe and friendly.




The marina jetties were high and covered with wooden planks. There were no "walk-ons" or "finger berths" apart from some very short rough tile-covered concrete stumps that provide an additional risk for serious hull damage. Yachts pick up sunken mooring lines from the stern and that's all good, except that .... except that... well... except that it's a fucking nightmare! The web of lines criss-crossing the the marina makes it only just possible to get a dinghy in and out, let alone a yacht, without fouling the prop in someone's lines. But hey, if you like the exitement of high seas and the risk of collision to extend to your marina stay, be my guest. The lack of breeze, stagnant water and less than 100% security comes at no extra charge.



We were quite happy in the anchorage. Well, reasonably so anyway. We had a light breeze during the afternoons and we managed to get a few wifi signals to work, occasionally. The club had a "pot-luck" style BBQ on sundays, except when the BBQ was not there. It was a pity that the bar frequently ran out of beer and sometimes the only cold thing you could get was the look from the bar staff, the only frozen one being the look from the owner. But nevermind. John the dock master, the only english-speaking link between the international cruisers and the club, did whatever he could to help and that usually kept him busy for 18 hours a day. I felt sorry for him, but maybe he enjoyed being busy. Whatever they pay him, he should be getting more.




The anchorage in Cartagena is deceptive. During our stay we had three squalls blowing from the south and creating a large chop across the anchorage. The real problem is in the bottom, though. Hard, tightly packed coarse sand will dislodge your trusted old CQR on the first wind shift. Anchoring in little over 2 meters deep compounds the problem with hardly any catenary to act as a cushion. Chain in a straigth line does not stretch! Dragging was common in squalls. Yep, we did too. I would recommend the deeper part of the anchorage.



Can you get this fucking rubber duck work on petrol? NOW@!¥§µ&€##@!!





Many inner city transfers of heavy goods are still done by a donkey pulling a cart.





Music is a good way to please the soul. Better than any drug. These guys are in the delivery business...


A few days before leaving Cartagena, we heard a rumour about the club building being torn down and the premises being moved a few meters (!) back from the street. The work started without prior warning or any information to the 50-odd cruisers using the facilities. The last person standing naked in the shower cubicle nearly got tiles on his head. Sledge hammers swinging, the walls came crumbling down. At the same time a new marina finger was already under construction and the 2009 season cruisers will hopefully enjoy a better than ever Club Nautico. Particularly if they hire a capable Food & Beverage manager, employ one english speaking assistant for John, perhaps hire a general manager with some business training and keep the grumpy owner and her family off the premises. In a nutshell: the worst marina and one of the most poorly run businesses that I have ever seen in my life.

You may think that I have a problem with Club Nautico? No, I don't. Not at all. (They do) In fact, I would go there again. I just have an opinion, that's all.

I've never had a humble opinion. If you've got an opinion, why be humble about it?
- Joan Baez -




It's such a nice feeling to be in friendly terms with a guy that has one hand on his pistol
and the other one on his machine gun, both loaded and ready to go. Plenty of heavy-duty security in Cartagena, though there was no sign of any real need for it. Maybe they shot all the bad guys already.




While Cartagena is probably the most beautiful and pleasant city in the Caribbean, it was nice to leave for clearer waters and quieter shores. And we did, with a city of about six million barnacles catching a ride on the underside. There you go. That was Cartagena. Excluding museums, art exhibitions, opera festivals, two to five day hikes up the most amazing mountains in the world, field trips to one of the most diverse rainforests, expeditions to the lost city, feeding the monkeys, speaking the spanish and doing the clubs on Friday nights. Yep. That was our boring version. But hey, I didn't get arrested, didn't wake up without knowing how I got there and didn't make any of the security guys fire their weapons.




Isla Rosarios


Aaahhhhhhhhhh..... Yeah. Not quite the picture-perfect paradise, but some things are certainly getting better.



Just 16 miles SW from Cartagena lies a group of islands that provide peace and quiet from the city life, clean water for swimming (and for cleaning the hull) and some laid-back friendly people with lots of crabs and lobsters in their canoes. The little "archipelago" is poorly charted and surrounded by coral reefs. Eyeballing in good daylight is the preferred method of navigation. We had a few waypoints for extra comfort and if we had really started rubbing shoulders with the "I've-been-cruising-for-ten-years-and-been-eight-years-in-Cartagena" folks, I'm sure we could have got more "advice". But all we needed was one decent anchorage to chill out, relax and get ready for a holiday. Holiday? Yep.



One gives nothing so generously as advice.
- La Rochefoucauld -





I write to a Finnish boating magazine, as well as dribbling shit here. I had done two stories up-front and that was enough to give us two months of no obligations. No internet. No deadlines. No rush to move on. The longest trip was going to be 100 miles to the eastern border of Panama, the rest just 5 to 15-mile hops from one island to another. It may sound ridiculous, but often our cruising seems like a constant demand to do stuff, fix stuff, write stuff, pull anchor, keep moving and keep doing. The feeling - like all feelings - is in my head, of course, and it doesn't matter what we do, I will feel an in-built "obligation" to do something. It's the Lutheran upbringing that my parents and their parents have effectively passed on. To be idle is a sin. One must always be useful and busy, forever sweating and suffering to earn the privilige of being alive. That's all a big load of crap of course. But I still behave the way I was programmed to behave. (I'm working on the de-programming, I'm working very hard on it, all the time, must go and work more on it.....)

We were all stocked up with everything. It was early July and we had 5 to 6 months to crawl along and find the eastern edge of the Pacific Ocean. Kewl.



Iguanas are common in the dryer type of tropical bush. This poor bugger got caught by a dog but Carlos managed to save it and we returned it to the bush.




Our second wedding anniversary was approaching and we had to take a break from the boring local food and come up with something special. The cheapest and most common food in Cartagena and out in Rosarios had been filet mignon, lobster and crab. There's only so much I can take. It was time for something excotic! Annina made a massively good lasagne and a Trifle for desert. (I used to say that Trifle was England's gift to the world of food, but my first brush with this divine stack of oral exctacy was indeed in Florence, Italy. Perhaps the Poms gave no gifts to the world of food after all? Never heard of famous Brittish cousine? Perhaps the meat pie? Nevermind.) Tinned strawberries, instant custard, long-life sponge cake and aerosol whipped cream. Phooooaaa! Luvvlay! After another week of fresh crabs, lobster and fish, I might splash out and make a lovely sausage soup for next Sunday.




There's an amazing aviary in the Rosarios, built by a local guy as a hobby. It has no entry fee, despite having This Toucan is only one of hundreds of birds in the aviary. Some of them were exotic, like the Emus and Vultures. Some of them were exotic like the native parrots from Colombia. You see, for me Colombia is an exotic country. And Emus are exotic in Colombia. Yeah?

Exotic according to the dictionary is...

1. strikingly different: strikingly unusual and often very colorful and exciting or suggesting distant countries and unfamiliar cultures
2. ecology from elsewhere: introduced from another place or region.

(... I live a very exotic life!)



Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhh...... (The heat was still very oppressive at times of no breeze)





Emilio charged us only local prices. Great move to ensure customer loyalty. Next time we met him we just placed an order whithout asking for the price.
The delivery was promt with the asking price of 35US and the bottom line firmly on 25US for two lobsters. A bit much, in fact waaaay too much, even for two large ones.
The Next day we found Emilio glassy eyed with a bunch of friends and a carton of beer.
Money well spent. A bit of luxury for both of us, that's what we're on this planet for.





Isla de Islote, San Bernardos




San Bernandos

After about a week or two of doing nothing I usually get the itch and start looking at making a move. There's nothing like moving to another location and continue doing nothing there. As much as we loved the laid-back feel of the Rosarios, the world was out there and we had come to see it. Well, we had to GO and see it. Apparently this had to happen first-thing in the morning so we could make it to the San Bernardos in good light. The 7 AM sun was low and against me when Aliisa grinded to a halt. Ouch! Only 1/2 mile from the anchorage! It was a good, hard stop. The kind of "Doink" that makes the boat take a deep bow and spill the morning coffee. I needed all 36 horses to propel Aliisa back in deep water. Pity about the coral, which will need a few years to recover. The keel will need a bit more paint too, but hey, as long as the anodes keep working... After a few more mouth-drying moments looking for our short cut through the islands and finding it over 2 - 1.9 - 1.8 - 1.7 - 2.0 - 4.0 meters of water, we were on our way and punching against a light SW wind and SW current. Nice one. Our next boat might just be a motorboat. Shallow draft.




Gringos!! There was no shortage of friendly fellas in Isla de Islotte. Ice, beer, prawns and vegetables were all available in one of the two shops.


There was a moment of disappointment when we arrived at the waypoint given by another yacht that had been there before. The anchor disappeared into 20 meters of water, along a vertical coral wall while Aliisa was rolling and nodding in a 0.5 meter chop. Apparently the only possible anchorage. Great advise, thanks guys! In fact, I was told not to even think about going into the poorly marked channels between the reefs to reach a more sheltered anchorage. The advise came from ... let's say, someone who should not be advising other people. Do not listen to know-it-alls, just go and find your own way. Thankfully we were not alone and didn't have to find our own way after all. Sy Windancer and Sy Better Days had arrived the day before and done a little survey around the place. They were kind enough tell us that the reds and greens on the glossy brochure from the Colombian National Parks were actually spot on and good enough for a keel boat. We joined them in a ultra-protected lagoon, in seven meters, soft bottom and a surprisingly swimmable clean water. We were in the western lagoon of Isla Tintipan, the only sensible anchorage in San Bernardos.



Perfectly snug, surrounded by mangroves. Oh, and a bastard generator running in a local house. San Bernardos, Colombia.



My dear wife Annina didn't like the mangroves. She knew what kind of stuff lives in there and the moment I had been dreading finally arrived when she pulled out her creation, sewn together from two big mozzie nets, covering the entire cockpit. I could do nothing but to escape the oppression out to the foredeck and into the hammock. I was a winner every night until midnite when the wind died and the sand flies came out. From there on I quite liked the atmosphere inside the net. Yeah. The mozzie net sucks. Except when I like it.

The main attraction in San Bernandos was a tiny island called Isla de Islote. About 120 meters across and with 1256 inhabitants it had a population density twice as big as Singapore but none of the glamour. About a third - 400 - were children and with only a handful of elderlies the average age on the rock must have been close to 30. The tightly packed community (90 houses) provided a stark contrast to the surrounding resorts and resort-style holiday homes on the larger islands. The main industry was fishing (surprise, surprise!) with some employment trickling down from domestic tourism.




Some large boulders of brain coral managed to grow near the mangroves. The surface water was much too hot for a good reef to grow, the deeper areas were very soft mud-like sand, making it a difficult enviroment for coral to get a hold. A few clean wrecks dumped in here would make a good artificial reef and create some dive-tourism for the future.




I made a pathetic attempt to go out and play with the boys on the island. You see, the whole community was quite a lunie-bin. During a daytime walk, there were hundreds of children playing or just sitting in shade against the concrete walls of the larger buildings. Moms were busy preparing food, changing nappies and hitting their no-good drunken lazy-bastard men with sticks! The men gathered in their own groups and poured whatever grog they could into their mouths. Teenage girls were in their own groups, gossiping about the boys and giggling like any normal girls would. Many of them were pregnant and many more would be soon. The thought of in-breeding came to mind. There was nothing particularly awful about the place, but the afternoon atmosphere was promising a wild night. I decided to return to the boat early. Had I been able to speak Spanish, things would have been different. The people were super friendly, absolute charmers. If I was studying sociology and needed something for my thesis, I'd go to Isla de Islote and live there for a year.




You lying, beer-sucking, no-good piece of shit! Bang, bang, right on the head. The girl was drunk too, as it turned out...





Kids against the wall. Isla de Islote.





Colombians were always happy with being photographed.





Boys will be boys and girls will be girls. Always.





Wilfred was curious to the max and had the "can-do" attitude. Anything from a SLR digital camera to a 15 hp outboard, he was ready to handle it.





My apologies for not remembering his name. One of the few seniors in Isla de Islote told me about the village in a few words and with a melancholy in his voice. I was embarrassed by my curiosity and my interest in the world where I would be nothing but another yachtie come-and-go.





Young. Old.





Women gathered in the village. Men, women and children all seemed to form their own groups.





Meat was available, but we didn't buy any.



Lighting strikes south of the Rosarios, Colombia. Thousands of strikes, every night, but the ferocity and power of the squalls were missing, compared to the storms north of Sumatra. If you want good lighting photos though, this is the place to be.


Previous: Jamaica Next: Kuna Yala
BONUS PIC BELOW...









Not a cool way to park your boat.












Back to text

Capt. Manfred HH Alwardt
Mobile 1: +57 311 400 6394
Mobile 2: +57 301 222 1255
Mobile 3: +57 317 729 7367
Email: Manfred.Al@gmx.net
Email2: hansapro@hotmail.com

Manfred is literally a character and a half. He was a great help to us and dealt with everyhing efficiently and promptly. After a month in Cartagena, we heard no complaints from other yachts either. The fees, charges and behaviour of authorities will always change and may affect the process. Manfred is playing the system well, siding with the yachties.