Maandelijks archief: maart 2016

Leaving beautiful Colombia

Colombia, English, ilse, toerisme

Today, Monday, February 29, 2016, We are in Shelter Bay Marina, Colon, Panama, right before the canal entry ! We left Santa Marta January 29th, a month passed by so quickly. I will try to give the highlights from this past month with lots of pictures.

We sailed from Puerto Velero to Cartagena on January 31,2016, anchor was up at 6.30 AM. We sailed about 10 hours and arrived at 4.20PM . It was great ! We had more tuna for dinner. Stefan had caught a tuna between Santa Marta and Barranquilla.

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Stefan in a good mood (but missing a party) because we are finaly sailing again and we had a nice sail to Cartagena.
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View from the boat. Anchored just in front of Club Nautico with the city of Cartagena in the background.
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Leaving the harbour of Cartagena, on our way to the Islas Rosario.

Monday, February 1, 2016, we left Cartagena at 9.30AM and arrived in Peninsula de Baru at 1.40PM. Baru is part of Islas del Rosario. See below a map with the Rosarios.

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On Tuesday February 2, 2016 we left Bari in the afternoon for Isla Grande. Only one hour later we arrived there.

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The road on Isla Grande. No cars, only bycicles, donkeys or on foot.
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Shopping on Isla Grande. Typical street…
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The toilets are on the right. Plastic bottles are being used to decorate the walls of the toilets.

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On Wednesday, February 3rd, 2016 we sailed to Tintipan Island part of the San Bernardo Archipelago.

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Another beautiful anchorage at Tintipan…
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We arrived on the deserted beach and it was full with falcons.
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A couple tamed little parrots part of the local bar on the beach.
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On our way with the dinghy from Tintipan to Santo Cruz el Islote, beautiful scenery…
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Hostels built in the water. This must be paradise.
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Empty private summer home. There are 3 vacatiion periods in Colombia : Christmas, January and Semana Santa. During those periods all of these islands are full of vacationing Colombians.

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Public telephone on Santa Cruz del Islote. No need to stand up the whole time 🙂
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Its significant population compared with its small size (approximately 0.012 km²) results in it being the most densely populated island on Earth!
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Streets on Santa Cruz del Islote.

On Thursday, February 4, 2016 we sailed for about 7 hours to arrive on Isla Fuerte at 5 PM. We were just anchored in a small bay lined with beautifull vacation homes when a motorboat approached us with 4 people on board. They wanted to know where we were from and if we wanted to have a drink and dinner with them ? They lived in one of the houses lining the bay. We hesitated at first, surprised with this nice invitation but agreed after we would first clean up ourselves :-). This is how we met Russ ( US) and Patricia (Colombian) and their friends (Joe and Sue ? ). We had such a great evening, and wat too much to drink !

Friday, February 5th, 2016, the next morning we were invited for breakfast and a tour of the island.

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On our way to the beach through the centre of the island. No cars, no motorcyles, you can only get around with donkeys, bicycles or on foot. Really great.
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Town center.
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Patricia organised a massage on the beach for me. Does it get any better ? 🙂
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Russ (right) and Joe (left) visiting our boat, captain Stefan in the middle.
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Sue on the boat.
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Patricia, the perfect hostess !
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In the evening we were invited again, together with about 15 young people, who are renovating a hostel on the island, to have dinner and drinks. Russ and Patricia were perfect hosts. We had a wonderful time meeting all these people and Russ is a good cook.

After the party, Russ and Patricia wanted us to take all the food that was left after their 2 month stay in Colombia since they were leaving for the US the next morning. We went back to the boat happy and loaded with food, 2 large plastic bags ! Thanks so much Russ and Patricia !!!! We hope to see you both in Belgium.

Saturday, February 6th, 2016. We reanchored the boat a little further in calmer waters and had another nice walk on the island.

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A good thing we cannot take a donkey on the boat, this baby one was so cute 🙂
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View from the boat.
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The hostel which the young people were renovating. Most of them were dutch but also some Australian and US guys.
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A great lunch on the beach with our feet in the sand and a nice breeze to stay cool. This is getting close to paradise 🙂

We left that night at 5.40PM to sail to Sapzurro, a nightsail of about 12 hours we had calculated. The sailing went so fast, with high waves that we arrived at 5 AM Sunday, February 7th, 2016 just before the bay of Sapzurro. Because it was still dark, we had to “park” the boat before the bay for 1.5hours. We were both so tired that we managed to sleep each about 30 minutes ! We sailed into the bay around 7.30 AM and were happy to drop the anchor and go to sleep :-). We were now still in Colombia but right on the border with Panama.