(To view Album scroll to end)I was glad to have read Mitchner’s fascinating book “Caribbean” just before arriving in Cartagena, what perfect timing. I could see the old pirate ships anchored in the harbor, observe the battles and smell the gunfire smoke and the musty wood of pirate ships, at least I was imagining it. There are two entrances to the protected harbor of Cartagena. Boca Chica has two forts one on either side and is to this day the main entrance to Cartagena. Boca Grande has an underwater wall, which was built to keep the pirate ships from entering. Many tried anyway and sank hitting the wall. The underwater wall still exists and for small vessels there is an opening of just about 60 feet wide to safely pass across the 10 foot shallow hump.
It was exciting arriving in the city of so much History. Boca Grande an L shaped island covered with high rise buildings extends all the way to the smaller island on which that big fortress of a city, called Cartagena, is built. Still to this day a big wall surrounds the city and invites you for walks on the wall at sunset, where Lendesman, Drake, Morgan and other well-known conquerors and pirates once did the same. The wall is called Las Murallas and was built to protect the City from pirates. The construction began after the attack of Frances
Drake at the end of the 16th century and took two decades too complete. Inside the thick and protective fortress wall is the very charming city of Cartagena, now called Cartagena Viejo. The alleys are narrow and the two to three story colonial buildings with flower covered balconies tell stories. This city reminds me very much of cities in Europe. The atmosphere is very laid back and you can safely walk these streets at any time, day or night, or enjoy it in a horse carriage ride. I love to listen to the sound of the clacking of the horses going by. As peaceful as this seems made me wonder about the rest of the country.
Colombia is a very beautiful country, but unfortunately is still controlled by guerillas. Tourists are not advised to leave the city for travels and kidnappings are frequent. It even is dangerous for locals to travel. There is another group of guerillas, which pretends to be on the military’s side. Since they are not military, they have there own rules and break the law all the time, which is just another form of guerilla. Every time we turned the TV on all we saw was people laying dead in the streets after mass ambushes by either of the two guerillas groups or saw them shoot at each other. This so called military is always on the lookout for guerillas. When entering villages for that reason, the village people scared run into their houses to hide. The so-called military assumes that they are guerillas because they are running from them and shoot them on the spot. This country is a real war zone.
Here we are in a very beautiful country and can only enjoy a very small part of it, Cartagena. It is a safe city and there is no sign of the rest of the country’s turmoil. There is a lot of police and military presents around and now and then you hear about a petty theft, but that’s about it.
I’ll never forget our first night at anchor. We were marveling over the most beautiful view over Cartagena, while listening to the rhythm of hoofs hitting the pavement. I couldn’t believe my eyes, when eight horses galloped through the city streets. The other amazement, was how quite it was at night in such a big city.
For the first week, we anchored in front of Club Nautico de Manga. Although the entire harbor of Cartagena is well protected and very calm, the many tourists water taxis make it quite uncomfortable at times, leaving huge wakes.
The day after Super Bowl Sunday, (yes, Sid was lucky again, to be able to watch it on TV), we moved into a slip at Club the Pesca. Sid had a lot of work planned, varnish, painting, having davits made and installing, changing carpet, sail repair and all the other odds and ends. The best place to do all those boat chores is in a marina. His plan changed a bit, as he unexpectedly had to leave for Los Angels to help a friend in need. He had just about enough time to pack his luggage, get a good night sleep and take off.
Bob’s wife Judy on Lyon Around was in the States at the same time an since they were in the slip next to us, Bob and I spend most of the time together exploring the great restaurants of this city. We found the most delicious restaurants in town and couldn’t wait for our spouses to come back to take them out for dinners.
During that time the wind was howling every day and even had a gale warning for an entire week. From November until April the wind blows from the NNE and brings a lot of black dust with it. You should have seen the boat and rigging, everything was covered with nasty black dust.
The wind blows so hard, that there is a wind rule to go by:
1. Always wear sunglasses unless you like your eyes sand blasted.
2. Never grin or smile, unless you like to grind your teeth with sand.
3. Always wear underwear or don’t wear a skirt.
It was almost necessary to hose the boat down daily to keep it clean, a no win situation. That kept Sid busy for most of the time.
99% of emeralds are from Colombia and since we’re in the Emerald country and it is my birthstone Sid said that I should buy one. Funny how it worked out, while Sid was shopping for boat parts in the States, I was shopping for an emerald in Cartagena. You should see my ring, just beautiful, 12 diamonds and a very nice quality Emerald from the Muzo mine, which is the finest emerald mine in Colombia. The stone has little inclusions and has an incredible fire. Yes, I got terribly spoiled in Cartagena, thank you Sid.
The other product Colombia is famous for is of course coffee, good coffee. In every street you see guys with boxes hanging from their shoulder, containing at least two thermos bottles, selling coffee to the neighborhood. They call it “Tinto”, 5 cents a shot. It’s really quite wonderful.
The restaurants in this town are out of this world. The food variety is very international and the prices are amazing. There are some little places, which are only open for lunch and sell a meal called “comida corriente”, (local meal), which consist of soup, chicken, steak or fish, rice and salad and cost anywhere from 1.25 to 1.75 per person. We figured out that it actually was cheaper to eat out, then cook at home. So the kitchen was closed for the time being, I loved it, no dishes to wash! Our favorite restaurant was “Pelikanos”; it’s in the prettiest part of old town. They don’t have a menu and serve each day something different. Saturdays was my favorite: filet mignon with a black pepper corn sauce. The meal includes three to four different appetizers, the main course, choice of three desserts and includes ½ bottle of wine or more per person. The cost 19,000 pesos, not even 10 dollars. Sometimes they even placed a huge piece of chocolate, about a 1 foot square, 2 inch thick piece of chocolate in front of us and we could eat as much of it as we wanted. This was the first restaurant Bob and I found and the first we took Sid and Judy out for dinner.
As Sid was back, he climbed the mast and was hanging in the rigging for two days. Washing all the black dust off he noticed, two broken stays, which can’t be bought here. Luckily, Keith on Tortuga was still in the States and brought the new stays down for us. Thanks Keith, we owe you big time.
Keith also had a new roommate. Maria Louisa (or Guicha) from Puerto Vallarta. We had met her in PV and it was just wonderful to run into her again. The two of us had a great time and went almost daily on shopping sprees. We got to know pretty much everybody in town.
One day I organized a fun trip to the Vulcan Totumo, which is a mud volcano, rising about 100 feet up into the sky and is about 2500 meters deep. The guys didn’t want to go, so it turned into a girl’s day. Vulcan Totumo is about 1 hour north of Cartagena by a beautiful lake. We had to climb some very steep steps up the volcano and then relaxed in a 14x14 feet pool of mud. The view was spectacular. The first few steps into the mud were pretty disgusting and it took me a few minutes to get used to it. I also expected the mud to be warm, but it was actually very cool and refreshing. There were several guys in the pool who moved us around. We had to be moved around, the mud was so thick you couldn’t move on your own. It was actually quite funny when the guys gave us a push we slid on top of the mud across the pool, not mentioning the sound it made. Then we received a wonderful massage for a whole hour. For a while it was quite and relaxing until they turned us over and we could see one another. It was so funny looking at all these muddy faces. We all pointed at each other, laughing in how ridiculous we looked in this gook. Of course the person you were laughing at would point back at you, telling you that there was really nothing to laugh about.
When we got out of the mud bath, the mud all slid down in to the bathing suit and that one dropped further and further down the legs. The bathing suit was stretched out to the knees. We could barely stop laughing. Also everybody looked about 30% fatter, with all the mud attached. With slippery hands and feet and laughing we had to climb down the volcano hill, which wasn’t easy. It was too funny we all looked like walking statues. The guys even sculpted our hair, which made it look even more ridiculous. Another few photos were taken and then the women washed us off in the lake. It sure was a fun experience and I’d do it again. On our drive home we stopped at a beach restaurant for lunch, some cool beers and a stroll along the beach.
Unfortunately during our stay in Cartagena, Sid had a lot of back problems and stayed on the boat resting a lot so I did some of the sightseeing alone. One very clear morning I took a taxi up to the Convento de la Popa, which is perched atop 492-ft (150 m) hill that overlooks the whole City of Cartagena. Afterwards I visited the Caves Las Bovedas, at the northern tip of Cartagena’s old city. Here are 23 dungeons built into the city walls. They were built in the end of the 18th century to hold prisoners. Today they are tourist shops. The Fort San Felipe is quite huge, interesting and beautiful. This fort has tunnels, which go 80 meters under ground; one of the tunnels even goes under the river right into the city. The view from the top was quite impressive as well. Unfortunately Sid missed this one too. But we’ll be back again and he’ll be able to visit next time.
Another trip Sid stayed behind was to St. Marta. Guicha, Carmen and I went to visit Carmen’s girlfriend Christina and hubby in Rodadero, St. Marta. Christina’s husband Dennis is from Louisiana; you should have seen the BBQ dinner he prepared for us. He had at least 15 steaks, 10 chicken legs, ribs, 20 hot dogs, 12 hamburgers, 12 potatoes, 10 corn on the cob, pot of beans and, corn patties, it took him 3½ hours to BBQ, all for just the five of us. We pigged out for the next two hours and breakfast as well. They spoiled us rotten, took us around town, introduced us to all their friends and in the evening had parties at their house. One of their friends deals with Emeralds. You should have seen those stones; he showed us stones worth over $40 000! It was a 4 hours bus ride to St. Marta, which gave me a small glimpse of Colombia.
I’m sure Sid had some fun as well. Carmen’s boyfriend Robert Winters, is an ex-LAPD motorcycle cop and he and Sid had a lot in common and lots of war stories to share.
Taxis in Cartagena are very cheap and we used them daily, which gave us a lot of time to study the traffic here. We thought driving in Panama was horrifying, that is a whole different game in Colombia. This is what we figured out the rules of the road:
1. A two-lane road can at any time turn into a three or four lane road; this lane can be driven in either direction.
2. When driving in the third lane, under no circumstances give way to coming traffic in same lane.
3. When in third lane, don’t pay attention to the bicycles and pedestrians in between all the lanes, they eventually move.
4. When all three or four lanes of the two lane road are jammed, drive in a slalom course around the other cars, as fast as you can.
5. Always drive right on someone’s ass and when they use the brakes, wait until the very last second, then slam your brakes, but slam them good. Same if you have a red light, don’t use the brakes until you’re right under the light, then slam the brake good.
6. When not much traffic and you’re bored, find pedestrians, aim, speed up and turn the windshield wipers on, and slam the brake right where they are. The higher you can make them jump the more points you get.
7. When stuck at a red light, honk the horn, the light will turn green. All the other cars in front and behind you will help you.
8. Bad suspension is a must, so are cracked windshields.
9. When buying a new car, use the horn first, if you like the sound, buy the car.
10. Use the horn as often as you can, best yet, use all the time.
For Taxi drivers:
1. All the rules above are the same.
2. You’re the only Taxi driver in the world and you own the street.
3. If you have an air-conditioner, always claim that it either doesn’t work, or that you don’t have one, even though you do.
4. Don’t worry about the clients hairdo, leave all the windows down anyway, they usually have a comb in their pocket.
5. Turn the music on as loud as you can.
6. When a cruise-ship is in charge double.
Changing money in Colombia: NO bank wants to change US dollars into the Colombian Peso. Banco Colombiana in Boca Grande is the only one that will exchange, but you’ll need to bring a copy of your passport. Getting money is easy via ATM machine. When locals change dollars, they have to pay a hefty tax.
During the 4 month in Cartagena, Paradise got a new look with a great wax job. Castro and two of his friends sanded the whole outside down and applied new wax, four days and cost $175. Paradise looks like a brand new boat.
Sid also felt that we needed davits, he designed them and Anacleto made them. He did a wonderful job, they look great and we saved a lot of money, not having them done in the States. He also made a rack for our solar panels and a backrest on top of the steering box (1300 for all). Poor Sid will be bored in anchorages now, since he can’t do the “solar-panel-shuffle” anymore. He always claimed, that the sun was moving on him.
As always, we meet the nicest people. This family needs special mention. “The Echelon Crew” July, Ashley, Chuck, Shane, the four kids Chris, Cameron, Sara hand Aria and two iguanas. Imagine 8 people on a 47-foot boat cruising already for 1½ years and still living in peace and harmony. Can you imagine the provisioning these two ladies have to do. Ashley told me that they go through two dozen of eggs each day! July and Ashley are both teachers and home-school the kids. July and I met early in the mornings for our fun walks along the waterfront or around the beautiful city wall.
We made very good friends with them and just as we got to know each other, they left for Aruba. Unfortunately they had a miserable trip, 45 knots of wind, 15 plus foot seas, some engine problem and fire on board. They decided that it wasn’t worth risking the boat and family and came back to Cartagena. Since they knew that we were heading for the Cayman Islands and we became such good friends, they asked if they could buddy-boat with us. How cool!
July and Ashley also got us hooked on the Dr. Atkins diet. Now, don’t come to conclusions, it’s not a bad diet at all. I read the book and the diet really makes sense. It really works, we’re are eating like kings, loosing weight and feeling great. We both lost 4 inches of waist- line in two months.
I never thought I would work in Colombia, well I did. Cindy and Reed on Sea Fever are working at Temptations, a souvenir store, where they bring all the cruise ship people to shop. They went on vacation to the States for two weeks and I took over their shift. I worked a total of 10 days. I tell you, it’s amazing what kind of junk tourists buy! I really had fun and I kept out of Sid’s way, while he was busy working on the boat. Sid sure worked his butt off, Paradise sparkles and is in even better shape than before.
“Mocha” a stray dog found a home at Club de Pesca and is now the club dog. Have you ever seen a dog smile? Yes, smile. Mocha smiles at you and if she’s really, really happy to see you, she even shows you her teeth. There is only one other dog we know, Geisha on Geisha. It’s really quite personal, when they smile at you. Mocha took to me, whenever she saw me her tail starts waging and she knew I had a little treat for her. During our stay she went in heat and four stray dogs fought over her, well, three did, the dominating one had her, he wouldn’t even let get me close to her. Did you know that dogs actually can get stuck for up to an hour when mating, I didn’t, until I saw poor Mocha stuck to that big, bad dog. Can you imagine this happening to us: “Hey Boss, sorry, I’m going to be one hour late for work, got stuck!”
Speaking dogs, one of the cruisers was riding his bike daily for exercise. As he drove toward Pie de Popa, a dog attacked him and bit him in his leg. He needed to see a doctor for stitches and check the dog with a vet. The next day he drove up there again on his bike. This time he got attacked by four men, trying to rob him, he got away unharmed this time. I would think that the dog bite would keep me away from that area! Besides Pie e Popa is just outside of town and known as not very safe.
I mentioned earlier how safe Cartagena is. It really is, but as in any big city, you get some bad stuff happening.
One day as Guicha and I sat at the jeweler, we heard this loud commotion outside, then loud trampling noises and the screaming seemed to head our way. Then they came by the store and into the hallway. It sure was a scary moment for Guicha and I not knowing what was going on. The guys from the store shut the door and grabbed their baseball bats.
My hair stood up! What happened was, a guy snatched a purse and the whole neighborhood went after him. Jesus the jeweler said, that the guy is lucky if the police get him before the crowed does. Actually good to know that crime is not tolerated in this city and it is safe here.
The end of April we had a bon-voyage brunch for all the boats leaving Cartagena. We were at Plaza Santo Domingo. During the party, we witnessed a taxi driver getting out of his car with a wrench and hitting the horse carriage driver over the head. The reason, he had asked him to move the horse carriage out of the way, but the guests on the carriage were still taking photos, so it took long of time for the taxi driver. He got pissed and knocked him over the head. Poor guy was bleeding hard, but grabbed on the wrench and started punching into the taxi driver’s face. After a few minutes the police showed up and took them apart. The horse guy was let go and the taxi driver was arrested for drunkenness. He didn’t look so good either and had lost several teeth in the fight. The funny part on this, the drunk Taxi driver had to drive himself to jail in his taxi, while the cops sat in the back seat. Only in Colombia!
Our friend Doug had sent us an address of his Cartagena friend Lee Miles. We started email contact with Lee when we were still in Panama and on our first day in Club de Pesca, he surprised us with a friendly visit and some super Colombian coffee from his store. Lee organizes the by-yearly Rum Run Regatta, starting in Cartagena via Providencia to San Andres. He is very involved in the boating community and loves to meet new cruisers. His wife Pachi and him are the greatest hosts and had cruisers over to their house many times and spoiled us rotten with wonderful food. Spoiled rotten is an understatement, since they have a cook and serving personnel. If you’re in this area, give him a call, he loves to meet new cruisers and currently is working on an information list for cruisers.
Whenever he invited us over to the house, he would introduce us to his friends and we met Loredana. She’s from Italy but grew up in Zurich, Switzerland. She hasn’t spoken Swiss-German in over 20 years and was so happy to be able to use it. Nobody was able to talk to us the whole evening. This really is the nicest part of cruising, meeting all these nice people and making new friends.
Grocery shopping in Cartagena is great. One sunny morning on my walk back from shopping at Magallis, a small pebble got between my foot and flip-flop, so I thought. I tried to shake it off, but it wouldn’t, so I shook my foot again and again, nothing. Finally I took my shoe off and to my horror I found a huge wolf spider on my flip-flop. Yuck and yikes, I touched a spider!!! I did a chicken dance on the sidewalk for many minutes. My skin even looked like I just got plucked. I must have looked pretty funny dancing and hopping around. It took me quite some time to finally have he nerve to pick up that shoe and toss the spider out. I repeated the dance throughout the whole day every time just remembering that horrible spider.
Do you like to go to the dentists? Guicha and I went for two weeks daily to Doctora Rocio Silva and had a blast. We both had all our ugly black mercury filling changed to white resin. She was just wonderful. While she worked on one of us she talked to the other, who was watching. I’ve never had a better time at any dentist. (If you need any dental work done, Colombia is the place to do it. I paid 15 bucks per tooth and she did a great job. She is located in the City Bank Building in old town Tel. 664 5098).
Poor Sid sure had his share of back problems. The whole month of April he was in mortal pain and couldn’t get comfortable in any position, whether he was standing, sitting or lying down, so we finally took him to a specialist at the hospital. Two epidurals later, Sid was almost as new. The epidural helped him for about 10 days and we renewed it just before leaving Cartagena, so that he would have a more comfortable time underway, we hoped.
On the 6th of May we checked out of Cartagena with Manfred our agent. Boy he’s really something else, when we come back we definitely will not use him. It’s hard to get hold of him and when he shows up he’s either in a bad mood or hung-over. When he shows up later in the afternoon, he’s still in a bad mood or drunk already. Unfortunately you do need an agent to check into Colombia, but then there are more agents to find.
May 7th after almost 4 months we left Cartagena for our 685-mile trip to the Cayman Islands. We found ourselves very lucky that the weather was finally good. The area around Cartagena is known as always having high winds, high seas and many boats have gotten in trouble.
Day 1:
We left at 9AM and the day started out smooth, not much wind, but of course a noserly again and the iron jib had to help. First night very lumpy, but still no wind and we were still motoring.
Day 2:
After 90 miles Sid smelled diesel fumes. After some investigation he found a big leak in the fuel-line, turned the engine off and worked on it for 3 hours. Sure glad Sid keeps old parts, he found the one necessary to replace and fix the leak.
Sunset was spectacular we saw the most incredible green flash as the sun disappeared on the horizon. The green flash lasted 3 to 5 seconds. We’ve seen several green flashes in our cruising time, but this one was by fare the most spectacular one.
Day 3:
Still a very calm day, we moved at 1.5 knots. It was so calm that clouds were reflecting in the water like a mirror. Not one ripple was on the water surface, just absolutely beautiful and peaceful.
Day 4: still not much wind but it was enough to fly the Spinnaker for the rest of the day. At 18:00 we had 260 miles to go to our first waypoint.
Day 5: As the sun came up in the morning, we were under a weird cloud cover. Later on, listening to the net, we found out about the first tropical wave of this season and we were right in the middle of it. For the whole day we had rough seas and rain.
Day 6: The tropical wave had passed, but now we were in the middle of convections, which meant rain and thunderstorms. We had Squalls all around us heading in our direction and passing over us. We had some occasional rain and had to dodge some squalls, which approached with strong winds. It wasn’t too bad except by sunset, one of those huge systems caught up with us. We were caught between two big thunderclouds. The wind did a sudden 60-degree turn and picked up 20 plus knots. Since it was coming out of a different direction, it actually flattened the seas down a bit, which was great for us. But we were still caught between two strong systems, which both spread rapidly. It wasn’t a very good situation for us since both systems started to throw lightning bolts out of the clouds. We turned the engine on and under full sail and motor power we plowed through the water like gangbusters and tried to outrun the coming system. We fought our way through it for almost four hours doing 7 knots and actually escaped those angry clouds and didn’t get one drop of rain. We did get into other smaller systems and had rain after all, but we did beat that nasty huge system.
Day 7: Arrived at 8 AM, turned the radio on to announce our arrival to Port-Security and for further instructions. We couldn’t believe our ears, they were fighting on the radio:
With heavy Jamaican accents we heard: “Bloody B, Bloody B, Bloody B, Bloody B this is Port-Security.” - (Brief silence) – “Bloody B, Bloody B, Bloody B, Bloody B this is Port-Security.” - (Again brief silence) – “Bloody B, Bloody B, Bloody B, Bloody B this is Port-Security.” – (this went on about 6 or 7 times) –
Then a very annoyed voice, same accent: “Port-Security, let em rest mon, give em a brake mon”. - “Bloody B, Bloody B, Bloody B, Bloody B this is Port-Security.” – Annoyed voice again even more so annoyed: “Mon I said, give the mon a rest, if they not answer, they not there, are a shore probably.” – (now angry Port-Security) – “Can’t be ashore haven’t checked in yet, must check in first!” – “Then go over there and knock on their boat and give us our peace mon!” – (now a third voice comes in – “Hey mon, leave Port-Security alone, has a job to do, let them do his job. . . . .
This went on for a while, great we still had to check in and the authority was pissed off already. We were almost afraid to call in. We waited a while longer to have him cool down, then Sid called him and a very friendly voice gave us directed on the check-in procedure. He instructed us to pick up one of the available orange buoys in the harbor and wait for the custom officer to board us. It wasn’t hard picking up that buoy and we sat there waiting for about 20 minutes, when we got called back with more instructions. You need to know one MUST fly the Cayman flag and a yellow quarantine flag, in order not to get fined and they WILL fine you. As we were sitting there waiting, Sid noticed that our Cayman Flag was red and not blue like the one ashore. We checked in two books, Reeds Caribbean guide, which the flag was blue as well and the booklet I had on how to make your own flags and in that one it was red. We surely were confused now not knowing if we had the right courtesy flag or not. Then the Port-Security called us again with more instructions to move Paradise to the concrete pier. We did that and two officials already waiting, boarded us and paper work started immediately. It was a very friendly and easy check-in and they never mentioned the color of our flag, nor questions about papers for the cats. Then in a very friendly grin they told us, that since we arrived on a Sunday, that we had to pay 50 Dollars for overtime. As soon as they got off, another guy boarded Paradise saying: “Hi, I’m the joke here!” With a spray can in his hand he insisted to spray our boat for bugs. After covering up some food he sprayed a very few sprays along the floorboards and with an even bigger grin repeated the customs guys speech about the overtime. Another 50 bucks, common, those three squirts out of that can couldn’t have been that expensive. Then we were told that all the mooring buoys around the island were for free. I don’t know about that, they had just cost us 120 bucks.
Back on the mooring, we noticed a Burger King and our mouth started watering and we went a shore. First we walked a bit through Georgetown marveling over all those luxurious jewelry stores and of course headed for Burger King for some fried chicken. What a disappointment, they didn’t have any and so we headed somewhere else for lunch. Shock after shock, when we noticed the prices. Boy, I tell you after traveling Latin countries for three years, the Cayman’s really are a culture shock. Imagine 21 Cayman dollar for one hour of Internet use, add 20% to that for $US, ouch.
Georgetown is a lovely town, very modern looking and no building is more then 5 stories high. I felt more like walking the Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich, all the shops were the most elegant and expensive ones I’ve ever seen and there was one exquisite jewelry store after another. I took a long afternoon by myself to look at all the beautiful jewelry in every single store and enjoyed it. I just hope I didn’t leave any drool marks on those clean and shiny glass-counters.
To be honest, I was very disappointed in Grand Cayman. I expected the most beautiful tropical island, instead it is a very flat island with absolutely no palm trees, the beach is covered with lava rocks and overbuild with one house after another and the only trees to see was some kind of pine tree. There is a seven-mile beach of sand, where most of the hotels are. One day we took the bus and did some sight seeing, there was no real sight everything looked exactly the same. We found the Turtle farm and did a quick tour, which was very interesting. The Cayman Islands grow turtle not for protection, they have a turtle farm for turtle-stew and other delicious dishes. We did go to Hell though, a little place of four houses which officially is called “Hell”. The name came from the weird rock formation which look like a lake of jagged edges and do look like hell.
On the 17th a sailboat from Switzerland approached the anchorage and didn’t quite know where to go, since we were in the dingy playing around we gave them some info. The next day Betty and Rene on Hanalai, called us on VHF inviting us over for some cocktails at four. Which we did and had a very pleasant time and made new friends. As Betty and I were talking we found out that Rene’s Birthday was the next day, May 19th, so was mine and so we celebrated it together at a wonderful local restaurant, the Champion-House had the most delicious Conch-fritters and very tasty turtle steaks and for our BD’s two huge pieces of rum cake. Unfortunately Sid and I were still doing the Atkins diet and so one bite each had to do. It was a fun Birthday, especially sharing it with someone else.
Echelon eventually caught up with us on the 21st of May they spent 10 fun days in Jamaica and loved it. The same day we received some strong winds and turned the very calm anchorage into a mess, so we decided it was time to head around the island to the Yacht Club in Governors Harbor. It was a bit rough but as soon as we turned the corner of the island it calmed down. This side of the island looked actually very pretty and there even was a long, long sandy beach with not one house built on it, must be a national park. After anchoring in the beautiful Governors Harbor with luxurious villas, the girls got together and wanted to check out the Yacht Club, and maybe take a shower. There was a nice little building next to the docks, so we entered and what we found was a little convenient store like a Seven/Eleven. So we asked where the YC was, there was no Yacht Club! No water either, except for 18 cents per gallon.
The big bay outside of the harbor is surrounded by a big reef and famous for diving. It’s known as the North-Wall and Stingray-City. Sid and I took a little dingy tour to the reef for a snorkel. It was great snorkel and on our way back to the dingy all of a sudden were surrounded by at least 15 huge stingrays, hoping to get fed. That was very exciting and incredible, we even got to touch some.
July organized a dive trip for all of us to dive the North-Wall. We had a wonderful time, saw turtles, cuttlefish and all the other beautiful tropical fish. The water wasn’t as clear as we had hoped for, but it was a treat to dive amongst these beautiful corals and marveling over the sea life. The treat of the day was a visit to Stingray-City. We all sat on the ocean floor in about 15 feet of water, when the same 15 huge stingrays mingled with us. They are pretty tame and used to being fed daily by divers. Our guide had some cut up squid, which she handed to us to feed the rays. The rays were all around and can get pretty overwhelming to get some food so that we had to push them out of the way and they didn’t mind us petting and rubbing them down. Sid rubbed one under his belly, you should have seen this, the huge ray liked it so much he got limp, hung over Sid’s head and just enjoyed the good rub down. It was an incredible experience for us all and at the end when we left the Caymans, we loved the island after all. It’s a great place to visit although as a cruiser you are a bit restricted with anchorages there are not many to use. It was worth going there and we really had a wonderful time. The only time you get mugged is when you dive with the stingrays.
May 29th we celebrated Sara’s Birthday. We started with Cocktails on Echelon and had fun watching her unwrapping her presents. The last present though wasn’t for her instead they handed it to me and wished me a belated BD. Since they missed my Birthday, they celebrated it together with Sarah’s and even had a cake with both our names for us, now that was nice. Then we had a great dinner at the Hard Rock Café.
May 30th, Paradise left the Caymans and Echelon followed the next day. We had a great trip to the Dry Tortugas. We had about 15 knots of wind and sailed wing on wing with jib and staysail up. According to the charts we should have had a current going with us for the whole trip, not so. Instead we had an opposing current of one knot, still doing 5 plus knots. We had following sees the wind on our back and the water was a bit choppy and confused. As we got into the Yucatan Channel, the water started to calm down more and more. Then the time to pick up the gulf stream, it was an exciting moment and we kept our eyes on the knot meter, but nothing happened. By now we reached the spot, where Lyon Around had picked up the current just two days before us, but nothing. We never found that 2 plus knot gulf-stream current but had a steady 0.5 to 1 knot against us. Exactly five days and one hour later we arrived safe in the Dry Tortugas. We only had one nasty 8-mile wide thundercloud with 45.9 knots of wind to battle the rest was a piece of cake.
I love the watches from 3AM – 6PM with the sunrise, but this time it was not fun at all. We were 40 miles off the Tortugas; when the National Bird of Florida the MOSQUITO greeted us! Boy they ate me alive. Sid was down below sleeping and by the time he came up I was covered with bites. We were swarmed by them, it was horrible. You should have seen us both with fly swatters in one hand and a Raid can in the other battling them. Later we found out that just a few days prior heavy rain hit the Tortugas, causing the mosquitoes to hatch. You have to know that we had to hit the mosquitoes twice or they would have smacked us right back that’s how big and nasty they were!
When we left the Cayman’s our original plan was to sail up to Louisiana, but heard on one of the nets, that Lake Ochechobee was very low, too low or us to cross. We then decided to the Dry Tortugas instead, which was a good thing, because just a few days later the first hurricane came up the Gulf and we would have been in the middle of it.
Most sailboats bypass the Dry Tortugas, probably because they’re so close to home now. It sure is worth a stop, the islands are very, very pretty. They lie almost 70 miles west of Key West and consist of a cluster of 7 islands. With surrounding shoals and water, they make up Dry Tortuga Nation Park, an area known for its birds and marine life and pirate legends. Fort Jefferson, its central cultural feature, is the largest 19h-century American coastal fort. First named The Turtles, Las Tortugas, by Spaniard Ponce de Leon in 1513, these reefs soon read “Dry Tortugas” on mariners charts to show they had no freshwater. The Fort has a very interesting history and is absolutely beautiful. The snorkeling was the best in a long time with crystal clear water. Just east of the island is a great coral reef. I wasn’t even in the water for three minutes, when I saw my first nurse shark. During my snorkel over the reef I encountered many more nurse sharks and one I didn’t recognize, most of the nurse sharks where resting under corals.
The treat of the day was a turtle in the middle of the coral reef it just stayed there and watched me, just beautiful. We were 10 people snorkeling and funny I was the only one to see all the sharks. Unfortunately Sid stayed on Paradise with back pain, or was it a hang over?!
We stayed four days in the Tortugas before taking our last 62 miles to Key West under our keel. The wind was at a 30 degrees angle and made it tough to sail, since we had to travel along two reefs on either side. The water was pretty choppy with the wind blowing 15-20 knots. After a couple of hours Sid went down below and notices the sinks filled with water. Something fell on the faucet, turned it on and since the drain was plugged, the sinks filled up with water and overflowed. The water was everywhere on the carpet from the galley to the aft cabin. We must have lost about 20 gallons. The good part was that it was fresh water, the bad part, the adapter for the not broken computer was under water and now we had no computer to work with at all.
The whole trip the water depth was around 20 feet. Due to a lot of reefs and mud flats, the channel to get into Key West is marked and you better follow it from marker to marker. Once approaching the anchorage it is safe, so we thought. By then the water was pretty shallow 8-10 feet and in this huge anchorage is just one tiny mud pile of about 3 feet depth and of course we found it. Sid and I have intercoms to talk to each other while anchoring, it works great, no yelling or screaming, no problems until this time. I tried to tell him that the depth was coming up. Sid tried to tell me the same at the same time. I tried to tell him again and started to turn the wheel to the right. Sid was talking the same time again, telling me to turn to the right. Then I heard him say it again, but too late, we were high and dry on that little mud pile. We were healing 15%. Sid kept the motor in gear, pulled the jib out, luckily the wind was still blowing 15 knots and within a few minutes we were pulled free. We found 8 feet of water again, but nothing deeper and finally anchored in-between all the other boats. After almost 4 years we finally did it, we gave the bottom a good cleaning!
It was an exhausting trip, so we stayed put, had a cocktail and dinner and went to bed early. Early next day we grabbed our boat papers and went ashore to check in. First we had to call the Customs for directions on how to get to their office. That was not necessary, all we needed to do was to call them and tell them that we entered the country, we were stunt. We did have to go to Immigration to get our passports stamped and that was a piece of cake as well. I guess 9/11 changed all that now.
So here we are, back in the country of plenty. A culture shock for us after almost 4 years living in Latin countries. We enjoyed Key West for three days, with a daily 4:30PM Happy Hour visit to the Half Shell Bar for raw oysters, amongst all the other tourists. There Sid sitting at the bar, grinning at me saying: “I feel like we’re on vacation!”
This was a great 3 ½ years-cruising adventure, we enjoyed it to the fullest and another adventure yet will start, as we will head up the Inner Coastal Water and spend some time in the USA.
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